


This Must Be The Place

by BasicBathsheba



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fiona is gonna show up I promise, Fluff, M/M, Punk!Simon, Sausage rolls, Simon doesn't know how to use Snapchat & neither do I, Simon/Fiona BroTP, Slow Burn, Social Media, Tiny Angst, baz has the hots for hugh grant, bed sharing, domestic baz, domestic simon, drunk lads, lots of romcom references, missing baz, pre-year 8, summer holiday simon, talking heads, teens love social media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-08 17:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14110773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba
Summary: Simon is stuck in juvenile care over the summer. He's lonely, disillusioned, and desperate to talk to Penny. But when he makes a Snapchat to try to contact her, he ends up talking to the most unlikely person.He never thought he and Baz could be friends. But as the summer unfolds, two boys become best friends, companions, and support in more ways than they ever expected.





	1. home is where I want to be

**SIMON**

This is probably one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had, but I’m losing my mind.

I wake up every morning with a pit in my stomach that has nothing to do with hunger. I’m hungry too—don’t get me wrong. I’d kill for a scone. But this is that kind of pull you get in your stomach when you miss something so badly you can’t breathe, and the ache pulsates through you every time you try to tamp it down. 

I’ve spent years practising, suppressing, deliberately pushing away all thoughts of Watford and magic and good food and Penny during the summer. I push it away so that I won’t feel this way: entirely numb, yet scorching with homesickness and want and loneliness. 

But I can’t just do that this summer. Not after everything. Not after the Humdrum wore my face and I flew and Penny sobbed while pulling dissolving bits of flesh from my back. Not after the look in Baz’s eyes as we got sucked away. Not after I begged the Mage — begged him — to let me stay, to let me help, to do something.

I cried when he said I had to go back to a home. I actually cried, there in his office, and he wouldn’t look at me. I told him I could stay with Penny, but he said no. He said it wasn’t safe for me. I told him if the Humdrum stole me again, at least if I was with Penny, someone would notice. But he said no.

So here I am.

I’m desperate to talk to Penny. I wish I’d never told her to stop possessing people at the corner shop. I need to know that she’s okay. I need to know if she wakes up with the same dreams I have, crouched in a ditch, blood and feathers sticking to her hands. I need to know the world of mages hasn’t burnt down while I’ve been staring at a wall in a juvenile centre in London. I need to know what Baz is plotting. I need to know how he plans to kill me. I need to know what he’s up to.

I just need to know.

I got a job a week into the holiday as a way to keep myself busy, to keep myself from going mad. I got the phone two weeks later, on pay day, and then it sat in the bottom of my bag underneath my bunk for a few days because I realised I didn’t have anyone’s number.

I left my old phone at Watford. I always did, because the Mage said I couldn’t have contact with anyone. I knew that if I brought it with me, I’d crack, and I’d use it. And I’ve never wanted to let the Mage down, so I never bring it. I have everyone’s numbers on that phone. But none on this one.

I can’t even remember the passwords to my stupid social media accounts, so I can’t even log in to Facebook or something to message Penny. 

I feel completely and utterly useless. 

I think about making a new Facebook or something, to reach out to her, but I worry that the Mage will catch me. Or one of my classmates will notice I’m active and mention something to a parent and it will get back to the Mage, and, and, and.

I don’t know what he’ll do if he finds out. I don’t know why I’m scared of finding out.

Four weeks into the holiday, I remember Penny’s Snapchat name. 

I’ve never used the app in my life, but I remember her agonising over it. She got it to stay in touch with Micah. (Agatha found that hysterical, for reasons I didn’t want to dwell on.)

But I remember her name.

Buncenburner.

I go to the park to download the app, far away from the prying eyes of the other boys. I don’t want them to know I have a phone. I think they’re all too scared of me to try anything, but I want to avoid the temptation if I can.

If feel like it takes years to download and set up, but then I’m there. I’m in, and the confusing app is spread out before me, and even though I’m a Normal, I’ve never felt so disconnected from the world of my birth as I am in this moment, staring at the colourful layout of this app.

I find her immediately and I add her, my heart singing when I see her icon with her wild hair and too pointy glasses. She doesn’t have a story up, but that’s okay. She’ll see that I followed her soon. 

I’m so excited that I immediately take a picture. The quality on the phone is shit, but I don’t care, and I take a giant, beaming photo of myself and upload it.

**\- Penny!! I miss u. Plz text me. -**

I add my number to it. 

I don’t know if I’m using this app right, but I don’t care. Penny’s the only one I plan to talk to on this, and this is just a way of reaching out, of getting her attention. I’ll do this every day if that’s what it takes, until she finally sees me. 

That’s what I end up doing, every day. I take a photo, I ask Penny to text me, I put it on the app. Sometimes I’m outside. Sometimes I take the photo while I’m bored at work. Sometimes I take it at night, when the photo is just pitch black. 

And finally, one day, after I’ve uploaded a purposely sad-looking one (I always try to make the photos funny or happy, so Penny won’t worry) while on my lunch break, my phone buzzes and I have an alert.

But it’s not from Penny.

 

**BAZ**

It started as a passing curiosity. I saw the name SimonSnow pop up on my suggested users, and I clicked. I was curious. I wanted to know what a different boy with that name would look like. I wanted to know what a different boy with that name would look like. Would he be the polar opposite? The moon to Snow’s maddening sun? Or would he be extraordinarily unspectacular?

Instead, I saw a picture of  _him_.

Simon Snow, sitting in a park, smiling. He addressed his story to Bunce, and even added his phone number, like the complete idiot he is. Was he completely unconcerned with privacy? His profile was on public, he used his name… so what was he doing? Was this some kind of code that the Mage and his team were using while off fighting the Humdrum and planning the downfall of the Pitches?

It wouldn’t be the worst plan, honestly. The Old Families would exactly be checking Snapchat for updates on the war. It was so oblivious and moronic that it was actually rather clever.

So I checked back the next day, just to be safe. Just to see if I could find the code.

It was almost the exact same photo; Snow outside, smiling, giving Bunce a number to call. I wish I had written down the first number so I could check it against that day’s. I wrote down his number, just in case. Just so I could confirm.

The next day, it was a dark picture of a bed. It had clearly been taken at night.

**\- Sleep tight Pen! Text me! -**

It had to be a code. Some way of Snow checking in, confirming locations or passing intel. But the phone number was the same. It was the same the next day too. And the day after that.

And then one day he was at Greggs.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand what I was seeing. He was leaning against a counter, wearing a navy hat with the small yellow squares and the word GREGGS on the cap. Behind him, a row of pasties stretched out.

**\- Miss u Pen. Plz text me!! -**

It didn’t make any sense. Why was Snow working at Greggs? What kind of secret plan was this?

It took me two hours and four more viewings of his story to realise that it wasn’t. There was no secret plan. There was no code. The Chosen One wasn’t off spending his summer chasing down threats with the Mage. He was working at a shop, and trying to contact his best friend.

I felt unspeakably sad when it hit me.

I know that I’ll have to kill him. Or that I’ll at least be expected to kill him. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do it yet or not. I guess it all depends on if he tries to kill me first. But that doesn’t mean I want him to suffer. I don’t want him to be lonely. I have to kill him, but that doesn’t keep me from being completely in love with him.

None of this makes sense to me. He’s the Mage’s Heir. Why isn’t he with him? Or why isn’t he with Bunce or Wellbelove? Where is he?

So I do what I swore I wouldn’t do. 

I make contact. 

I place my thumb over the camera and take a dark photo. I type in some text. And then I privately respond to him.

 

**SIMON**

I don’t recognise the name that appears in my notifications, but I know it’s not Penny. I know her name, and this message comes in as grimm_things.

I open it hesitantly, unsure of what will be inside.

_\- Is the Humdrum hiding in a sausage roll? -_

I sit up straight in bed. It’s early in the afternoon still, and none of the other boys are back in the room, so I have this small time to myself. To panic.

It’s not Penny, but it’s definitely someone who knows me.

I click on the name and it takes me to the users’ profile, and I squint to make out the profile photo, it’s so small and this phone screen is so shit, but then I see it.

It’s Baz.

 

 


	2. the less we say about it the better

**SIMON**

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck oh fuck.

I throw the phone away from me and pull my knees up, as if compressing myself into a smaller space and separating myself from the phone will keep him from finding me.

How did he find me? Can other people see me? Why did he message me?

I hate this app. It’s stupid and I don’t know how to use it, and I feel like a complete bellend for not realising that someone could find me on it without knowing my name.

Though, I guess I did literally just use my name.

Shit. I didn’t think this through.

I was just about ready to give up on this whole thing. Penny clearly isn’t checking her Snapchat anymore, and the silence was getting to me. Somehow it was worse to try, and hear nothing, than to not try at all.

There’s a relief though, when I see his photo, and I hate it. I hate that it confirms I’m not crazy. It confirms that this is real, magick is real, and the Humdrum, and Penny.

Some nights I’ve laid up, just wondering. What if Penny’s not real? What if none of it is real, and it’s some desperate delusion I’ve formed in my head to break up the monotony of foster homes and juvenile centers and days spent with nothing to do?

But if Baz is real, Penny is real. Never in my wildest dreams could I create Baz.

I don’t know what to say. Should I answer him? Should I break my phone right now and pretend it never happened? 

I pick up my phone slowly. (Just in case.) I go back to his profile. I can’t see anything without following him. Should I? I’ve spent years following him. Is this so much different?

I do it. I follow him. Then I tap back over to his message.

What do I say? Do I ask him about Agatha? No. I don’t want to. I’m angry and I’m hurt, but my obsessing over Watford and magick has made one thing clear: of all the people and things and places I’ve been missing and pining for, Agatha isn’t one of them. At least not in that way.

If Baz wants her, that can be their issue. All I want is Penny. To see that she’s alright. To hear her voice. 

But I also want to know what’s happening with the war, and the Mage, and the wider world of magick. And no one is as plugged into politics as Baz.

I doubt he’ll put his plotting on Snapchat, but it might be helpful to keep an eye on him. Maybe even talk to him. 

The Mage shut me away again this summer like a child, but maybe if I learn something worthwhile, he’ll let me come back. I know his mobile number. It’s the only one I’ve ever memorised. Maybe if I discover something, something really good, I could call him.  
But what do I say to Baz?

**\- Go fuck yourself -**

I decide to be true to myself. I send it with a photo of the wall at the edge of the bunk. Maybe I should have said something more interesting. He probably won’t respond.

But his response comes immediately. It’s a photo of a library wall, crammed with dark wood bookshelves and rows and rows of books. It looks older than the Watford library. Crowley, is this what Baz’s house looks like?

_\- No really, please let me know. I’d hate to bite into a Victoria Sponge and discover a dead spot. -_

I blow air out through my cheeks and glance around. I still have the room to myself. Good. Usually the other boys give me a wide breadth, because they’re scared of me. I don’t try to change that.

**\- seriously go fuck yourself -**

I send it with a picture of the underside of the bunk. I always sleep on the bottom; it’s easier to get out of quickly.

_\- And you speak to the Mage with that mouth? -_

The picture he sends looks like a couch and a hardwood floor. 

What is he doing? Why is he talking to me? I should Just ask him.

**\- what are you doing? -**

 

**BAZ**

Snow is apparently laying on his bed and talking to me.

I’ve never thought about where Snow sleeps when he’s not in our room. Whenever I picture him, it’s always there. That’s his home. That’s where he belongs.

But the photos he’s sending are of a concrete wall, and the underside of what looks like a bunk bed from an American prison show. And now I can see his trainers, crossed on a sad, thin looking blanket, pushed up against that cinderblock wall.

Where is he?

Where would Simon Snow, the Chosen One, the Mages’ Heir go over the summer where he sleeps in a bunk bed and works at Greggs?

He wants to know what I’m doing.

I know he’s asking in the larger sense. Why am I talking to him? What is my goal? What plot am I setting in motion?

Honestly, I’ve got no idea. I can’t tell him that somehow my best laid plots go out the window when he gets involved. That’s why I’ve stopped sending mythical beasts after him and trying to steal his voice. My energy is better spent pretending that I’m not pathetically in love with him. So I decide to answer him literally.

I take a photo of the book that’s sitting open in my lap. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s intelligent enough. Far more respectable than anything Snow has ever read, for sure. If Snow even reads. I realise with a small flush that the photo shows my stockinged feet,   which are folded up on the couch beneath me. Whatever. I send it anyway.

 _\- Reading -_ I say.  _\- You should try it some time. -_

I wait for a moment, and I see that he’s opened it. I hold my breath and send another, this time of the bookshelf again.

_\- What are you doing? -_

The question feels almost obscene. It feels explicit. Being nice — no, not even nice, being normal — to Snow after spending so long ignoring and insulting and pretending to hate him feels deeply, shamefully wrong.

But I love it.

I hold my breath and wait for his answer. Will he answer? Or is this too weird, even for him? Finally it shows up.

**\- waiting for food -**

It’s another photo of the bed, but this time it’s a wider frame than I think he intended, because I can see the frame of another set of bunk beds.

Where is he?

_\- Where are you? -_

I send it with a dark photo again.

The answer comes immediately. It’s a window, looking out onto a tidy street of buildings and businesses. There’s traffic. And a bus. 

 **\- London -**  he says.  **\- you? -**

I take a photo of my own window, looking out onto the forest next to my house.

_\- Hampshire. -_

Snow is in London, working at a shop and sleeping in a bunk bed.

That doesn’t sound like he’s with the Mage. That sounds like he’s back at a home.

That’s not possible though, right? I know the Mage pulled him out of a home that first year, and I know he was scared of going back. He cried about it for weeks at the end of the terms and I finally ended up spelling him silent so I wouldn’t have to hear about it. But then one day just before break, he was fine. He stopped bouncing that fucking red ball. Like a switch had been flipped, and he was composed and ready and left for break without even a word back to me.

I had assumed that he had won. That someone let him come stay — Bunce, that first year, then the Wellbeloves eventually, and then as he got older I figured he and the Mage went camping or something ridiculous and woodsy. I assumed that’s why he came back thin every year, from a summer of exercise and roughing it and training with the Mage.

It never occurred to me that he came back, half starved, after a summer left to rot in a boy’s home.

The Mage sends him back to a care home. He adopts him, names him his heir, gives him a sword and shows him this whole world…and then takes it away at the end of term.

That’s cruel, even by my standards. And I’m the one who’s supposed to want to kill him.

 

**SIMON**

**\- why are you talking to me? -**

That’s the real question. Why reach out? Baz spends all of the school year pretending I don’t exist except to push me down stairs and try to steal my girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Something. Why talk to me now?

My heart is racing. This feels unreal. I’m in a boy’s home, waiting for what will be an extremely unsatisfying dinner, talking to Baz. Baz. He’s probably the best mage I know except for Penny, but he honestly might be better than her. He’s everything that encapsulates the world of magic.

And I’m talking to him from a juvenile home.

Maybe this is why the Mage shuts me out. So that I won’t feel like this. So that my two worlds won’t collide and make me breath fast and feel like I’m having a panic attack.

I stare at my phone. He’s not answering.

I tried being literal with him, since he did it to me. Just to give him a taste of his own medicine. But now I just worry that he’ll stop speaking. And when he stops speaking I’ll worry that I made it all up.

When my phone finally buzzes, I’m so worked up I could go off. I can feel my magic leaking out around me. The room is going to reek again, and one of the boys I share it with is sure to complain about me smoking indoors.

_\- I’m bored. The summer drags on when I don’t have anyone to torture. -_

That’s a pretty classic fucking Baz line.

And it calms me. 

 **\- You need to get friends -** I answer, along with another photo of the window. I shouldn’t answer him. I told myself I’d just do this to talk to Penny, and that’s it. Baz is my enemy, and I’m only going to end up pissed off.

But I’m lonely. 

Crowley, I’ve really scraped the bottom of the barrel, huh?


	3. make it up as we go along

**BAZ**

_\- You have flour on your face. do they not have showers in your orphanage? -_

Today, surely, will be the day he stops answering.

I’ve turned it into a game for myself. Each day when he posts his plea for Bunce to text him, I respond with something shitty.

He always answers me back, and we trade insults and banal conversation until one of us stops answering. It’s usually him. Sometimes it’s me. Twice I’ve skipped a day messaging him, just to keep him on his toes. I don’t want him to think this is important to me.

I won’t let myself message him out of the blue. I won’t talk about anything unrelated. I won’t try to keep the conversation going. If it dies, that’s it. I start over the next day.

He never responds to my stories though. I know that he sees them, but he never answers.

I wonder if Wellbelove knows he has an account. I know she watches my stories. She responds to them sometimes, with meaningless emojis or “omg”. I never answer her. There’s no point in encouraging her, especially if Snow can’t see it. Her stories are filled with horses and Normals and summer drives. She’s always smiling, always laughing.

And Snow’s are always the same. Begging his best friend to find him.

 **\- haha -** he answers.  **\- get em all in now im deleting this tmrw -**

I hate the jolt that goes through me as I immediately type out  _\- why? -_

**\- no point. penny’s not watching -**

I hate that my suspicions are confirmed. By now I have almost no doubt that Snow got dropped somewhere in London and is desperately lonely. I can’t imagine that he’s actually working with the Mage or doing something crafty with his stupid daily stories. But I wanted to be wrong. I wanted this to be some elaborate plot. But he’s not me; he doesn’t plot. 

I snap a photo of Mordelia glaring at me, because we’re at the kitchen table eating breakfast, and I’m getting tired of sending blurry photos of walls and the floor. Well, she’s eating. I’m talking to Snow.

_\- You give up easily for the Chosen One. I hope you don’t quit so fast on the Humdrum. -_

Usually when I taunt him like this, he tells me to fuck off. Sometimes he stops answering all together. I like to imagine that wherever he is, he’s getting worked up. His magic is rolling off of him in waves. If I close my eyes I can taste it’s familiar scent in my mouth.

 **\- who is that? -**  he says instead.

I look up at Mordelia. She’s chattering about something — ghouls? — and doesn’t care that I’m completely tuning her out. She can do this for hours.

_\- My sister. She has more stamina than you. -_

He answers again. He’s at a park.

**\- didn’t know u had siblings. she doesn’t look as scary as u -**

I hate the way he types.

_\- She’s far scarier, I assure you -_

I send another one of her. She’s glaring at me because I’ve been laughing. 

**\- what’s it like? having a sib?-**

I wasn’t prepared for that. 

What is it like? I don’t fully know. My siblings are half siblings. And I love them, truly. But they’re young, and I’m dead. But how can I say that to Snow? How can I dismiss something he’ll never have? Or at least never know. He could have siblings out there, and he’d never know, would he?  

I cannot bear the thought of another Simon Snow in this world, living his Normal life. 

“Mordelia,” I say slowly. “Would you indulge me for a moment?” 

She’s glaring at me as I move over to her and stoop down to take a photo. She realises what I’m doing too soon though, and she pushes me away, a perfect sneer on her face.

I’m so proud.

I send the photo of us to Snow with no caption. It’s personal; almost too personal to be sending under the guise of a shitty response. I’m smiling in the photo and Mordelia looks revolted. Her hand is blurry, and looks like it’s about to connect with my face.

I see him open the message, and then he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t respond.  
I’ve one day left to talk to him before he deletes this app and removes any excuse I have to talk to him, and then that’s it. And I’ve spooked him off before 10 am. 

I’m almost gutted by this. Because I’m a constant disappointment to myself.  
But then my phone buzzes, and the thrill that runs through me reveals a new low.

**\- so like us then. has she ever pushed u down the stairs? -**

 

**SIMON**

I already sort of regret that.

I didn’t mean to imply that Baz is like my brother. He’s absolutely not. But I didn’t know what to say. 

That picture threw me a bit, I won’t lie. It’s hard to think of Baz with a home life. Of Baz eating breakfast in a kitchen with a little sister. Then when he sent a selfie where he actually smiled…

I don’t know the last time I saw him smile. A real one, that is. Not one that’s been earned by setting my book on fire or spelling my fork to my hand.

It’s a good look on him. It makes him look more human. Less like a monster. I guess it’s just because it’s hard to imagine a monster picking on his little sister. 

He’s silent for a long while, and when the next photo comes in, it’s of the world’s largest, grandest looking staircase. Or at least the grandest one I’ve ever seen. There’s no comment on it. It would take me an hour to fall down it.

 **\- got any evil plans today? -**  I ask him.

This conversation is verging on personal and friendly, but I don’t care. I’m lonely. I’m bored. I don’t have work today, which is always dangerous. I get antsy and nervous when I don’t have work, because there’s nothing to distract me. Days like this are when I start worrying about Penny and why she isn’t answering. Days like this are the ones where I don’t check out on Baz, and keep the conversation going. I tell myself it’s because I want to see if he’ll slip up, if he’ll tell me something about his plots or the Mage.

But I know that’s a lie. I know I keep it going because I like the distraction.

_\- I’m taking Mordelia to football. Then I’m draining the blood of four virgins. You? -_

Did Baz just make a vampire joke? What the fuck?

He’s taking his sister to practice, and making a vampire joke.

I don’t know how to answer his question. How do I tell him that I’m at the park because it’s a Saturday and the boys at the home get to go play football, but I’m way older than them and don’t know how to talk to them? Or that they hate me and I hate them so I’m sitting here alone, ignoring them and being ignored until it’s time to go back because I don’t have work today and have no permission to leave?

Instead I just take a photo of some grass and say  **\- wouldn’t u like to know -**

It’s extremely childish.

He’s silent for a few hours, probably ferrying his sister around, and it comes time to leave the park. I’m starving; days off of work mean days without leftovers from the bakery. 

I shuffle through lunch in a daze, and spend most of it with my cross in my mouth, staring out the window. A younger boy, one I don’t know, ventures to sit near me. I’ve seen him tagging around me lately, but he never speaks. I think he’s scared of me — most of them are, it’s a side effect of my magic — but I think he’s chosen me because I’m so offputting. I think his plan is to stick in my shadow, so no one else will give him a hard time. 

I don’t tell him off. I just let him stay.

During the summers, time moves extremely slowly at the home. There’s no school work so the social workers and ladies in the office try to organise activities, but I’ve stopped going to them. No one really cares enough to tell me off, so I spend most free days in the rec room watching TV or in the bunk room.

If any other boys see me in the room, they usually leave. It’s one of the larger children’s homes I’ve been in, which is for the best. It’s loud and crowded, so it’s easier to get lost in it.

I’m in the rec room, zoning out in front of the TV when I feel my pocket buzz. Baz has responded. 

I slip from the room and down the hallway to my bunk room, nodding at the ladies at the front desk. The room is empty. Good.

I collapse down on my bed and pull out my phone.

Baz has just sent a photo, no text. He’s in a parking lot, and it looks like he’s leaning against a car. I only see his legs, and the corner of his hand. He’s holding a fag.

 **\- don’t smoke -**  I tell him.  **\- ur flammable -**

_\- Why aren’t you with Bunce? -_

The question comes immediately, and in the photo I see that he’s stamped out the cigarette. 

What do I tell him? Can I possibly tell him the truth?

The Mage would probably kill me. But then again, what’s the point of hiding?

He never told me to lie about where I was. If he’s sent me off each summer to protect or hide me, he’s done a pretty shit job of it. I can’t imagine that a boy’s home is keeping the goblins from killing me. Or maybe he wants me to hide from Baz. But what could the Old Families possibly do with the knowledge that I’ve been planted in London?

I guess they could kill me.

I’d almost invite it. At least then I’d have something to do.

**\- Mage has me stay in care over the summer. for protection. and to keep me close to the language -**

That’s the standard line. To keep me close to the language. And to keep my wits about me. It’s what I always tell myself. But it’s bullshit. I’ve always known it, and this summer it’s harder than ever to ignore.

There’s no language to be learned in these homes. But I do stay sharp. I live in constant fear. that the Humdrum will pluck me again. That tonight will be the night the other boys jump me in my sleep. That I’ll have a nightmare about bloody feathers and dissolving wings and I’ll set the whole home on fire in my sleep.

I wasn’t supposed to still be here. He used to tell me I could stay at Watford over holidays, or even with him. But it never happened. He promised, and then he didn’t follow through. He didn’t speak to me for months last year. He does that all the time, just goes completely silent until he pops up and needs me to handle a were invasion. Then he ignores me again. Then the fucking Humdrum attacks and he’s worried about the Coven?

 _\- That sounds like absolute bullshit -_ Baz responds. It’s accompanied by a photo of two smaller children — twins? — eating Cornettos.

He’s right. 

I tell him so, along with another photo of my trainers up on my bed.

**\- yeah, pretty much. -**

It’s dark when he answers again, and I’ve turned in for the night. I feel the phone vibrate under my pillow where I’ve left it, so I pull it out and check his message quickly under the covers. 

_\- Why do you stay then? -_

It’s a good question. Too bad I have no fucking idea.

Instead I just don’t answer.


	4. you got light in your eyes

**BAZ**

_**BP:**  You need a hobby that doesn’t involve eating or killing things._

I hold my breath. 

I’ve decided to text Snow.

I hate using Snapchat, honestly. I hate sending the photos and censoring my life. I hate seeing his daily pleas to Bunce (he lied; he didn’t delete his account). I hate seeing the same photos of bunk beds and shoes and the counter at Greggs. 

I hate Saturdays the most, because that’s when he doesn’t work. But I also love them, because that’s when he talks to me the longest.

I still don’t know why he’s answering me. What is he possibly getting out of these conversations? I’m not going to tell him some family plot. And we’ve largely given up insulting one another. Which means he’s either enjoying himself, or desperate.

I texted him this morning because I woke up in a good mood, and I’m feeling brave. Snow and I talked late last night. I couldn’t sleep — I told him so, when he asked why I was awake, and when he asked why I couldn’t sleep, I told him the truth. 

I don’t know why I did. Maybe because it was 2:30 am and I was drunk off of the strange giddiness of talking to him about nothing. We’d been arguing about how old Professor Possibelf was (I thought she was in her sixties. He thinks she’s over a hundred) when he asked. So I told him.

_\- I don’t sleep well without someone in the room. The wraiths have moved out from under my bed this summer. -_

I expected him to turn it against me, to take this hint of vulnerability and use it to destroy me, but he didn’t. 

**\- me neither. that’s why I’m up too -**

_\- Don’t you share a room with ten other delinquents? -_ I asked.

**\- Ya… but here I’m worried about going off when I dream -**

The implication is that he doesn’t worry about going off in our room. But I decide to misread it, and believe he just doesn’t sleep well without me. I wish that were true. I don’t sleep well without him.

But even on little sleep, today is a good day. Today’s a Sunday, which means he’ll have work. And he’ll have food.

In this strange new world I’m living in, these are the things that determine whether I’m in a good mood.

_**SS:**  why are u texting me_

I’m glad that he’s still suspicious. It would be too strange if he blindly accepted this tenuous truce — is that what it is? — that we’ve accidentally stumbled into.

_**BP:** I just can’t be my best self when I’m not making you miserable._

_**SS:**  I have hobbies_

_**BP:** Eating 10 sausage rolls is not a hobby._

_**SS:**  I only ate 3 today_

This is the inane conversation I live for.

_**SS:** how do u even find a hobby? What the fuck kind of hobby could I have? All I can do is eat and go off._

_**BP:**  You could read. You could practice spelling correctly. There’s a world of opportunities out there, Snow._

_**SS:**  ya… nah_

He does this just to make me miserable.

_**SS:** hey has civil war broken out yet? anything burning? _

He seems chipper. Most of the time I can tell when he’s in a good mood, because his sentences are longer. He doesn’t lead with “fuck you”. He’s also asking about the war, which he only does when he’s not too depressed about everything.

_**BP:**  No fatalities today. I’ll let you know when to report to the battlefield._

_**SS:**  or how about u don’t. can I pass?_

What the fuck?

The questions about the war started as his way of trying to get information about politics and the state of affairs, and they’ve always turned into a round of banter about us killing each other.

Yes, Snow and I joke about killing each other now. I regularly reference the day that I’ll tear his throat out with my teeth. Some light vampire humour. The world has truly flipped. 

But he’s never once indicated that it won’t happen. And he’s definitely never indicated he doesn’t want it to.

_**BP:** You can’t “pass”. I have to kill you in a fiery death with your own sword. _

I don’t know what my life is anymore.

_**SS:** ya…. or u could not_

Well that’s certainly a fucking option. 

My pulse is rising, and I’m absolutely starving to the point where my hands are getting jittery, so I put my phone down.

I don’t know how to handle this Simon. I know how to fight. I’ve always known how to fight. But I don’t know how to be friends.

There have been some nights (many) where I’ve thought about life after Watford. What would happen in Snow and I both lived. In these thoughts we’re together, but we’re still fighting. Always fighting. We insult and we push and everything is violent and a challenge.

I never allow myself to think about what it would be like to be with Snow and just… be soft. I never let myself think of mornings in bed, or holding hands, or saying kind things and sharing fears.

Somehow that’s more painful than the idea of dying at his hand. 

 

**SIMON**

I think I meant it. The thing about not wanting to fight.

Not thinking about Watford isn’t working this summer. It’s all I think about. Watford and the Humdrum and the fucking Old Families.

And I realised I don’t care.

I’ll fight the Humdrum. That’s something I believe in. That’s something I need. I need to know why he wears my face. We’re tied together, him and me, to the end.

But I really couldn’t give a fuck about the Old Family civil war.

It seems like some days the Mage is more concerned with them than he is with the dead spots. Like they’re the bigger threat. That’s fine, if that’s his priority.

But it’s not mine. The Mage has his battle, and I have mine, and I’m getting pretty sick of being told what to do and where to go and who to hate. And I know that one day soon, I’ll be told who to kill.

And that just doesn’t sit well with me.

Penny will be proud, I think, when she hears. But I’m not proud. 

This is why I don’t let myself think about Watford and magic. Because this is the road it leads down. And I think that for years, I’ve been avoiding this realisation.

Let the Old Families fight. I’m not going to. I’m going to kill the Humdrum, then get Penny and Agatha and get them the fuck out of there. That’s my priority.   
Maybe Baz can come if he wants. As long as he doesn’t try to kill me. Or eat anyone.

The Mage would kill me if he knew I was talking to Baz, telling him I don’t want to fight. But I’m tired. 

Being in a boy’s home is exhausting. I’m bored, and scared, and starving. And Baz, for whatever weird reason, has been keeping me from madness.

He’s still a vampire. I’m pretty fucking positive. But I’m just not sure if he’s a monster.

_**BP:**  No promises._

I shove the phone back in my pocket. I’m at work; I shouldn’t be texting. It’s just hard not to think about it. About him. About talking to him.

I wait to text him back until I’m off work, walking down the street. 

_**SS:**  any chance you have Penny’s number?_

I’ve been wanting to ask for awhile. I don’t think he does, but I wouldn’t expect him to tell me anyway. If he does have it, he’s deliberately keeping it from me to torture me.

_**BP:**  No. Why do you need to talk to her so badly? _

_**BP:**  What makes this summer different?_

He knows. He knows why it’s different. He knows that the last time I saw Penny we’d been taken. That I was leaking blood from my pores and she was sobbing.

I know he knows, because I saw him when we got back. I saw his face. It was pure terror. He looked like he was going to vomit, and he forced his way from the room before the real shit show happened.

_**SS:** I just need to know she’s okay._

_**BP:**  I’m sure the Mage would tell you if she’s hurt._

_**SS:**  no I don’t mean like that_

_**SS:**  I just_

_**SS:** shit got real and she saw some fucked up stuff and I just need to make sure she’s okay and okay with that_

_**SS:**  I need to make sure she’s not scared of me_

Why did I say that?

Fuck fuck why did I say that?

I never meant to confess that, to let on my deepest fear: that Penny is avoiding me because she’s not okay. Because she’s as haunted by that night as I am. Because she saw his face — my face — and now she can’t trust me. Now she doesn’t know me.

Baz is going to use this to ruin me.

 

**BAZ**

I did not expect Snow to be this forthcoming.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He can’t hide anything. He’s like a sieve; he leaks magic, tears, and emotion. He’s literally telling his sworn nemesis about his largest fear.

I want him to tell me more. I want him to tell me what happened last year, what he’s so scared of. I want him to let me comfort him. 

But he doesn’t want me. He wants Bunce.

I don’t want to scare him off by being too kind. Not to mention I wouldn’t know how to start.

_**SS:**  just ignore I said that. It doesn’t matter. And also I prob shouldn’t be telling you this shit_

This is shockingly self aware for Simon Snow.

_**BP:**  You already said it, I can’t ignore it._

_**SS:**  ya but now you’ll find a way to use this against me in your plotting_

I want him to keep opening up to me. I sigh. I’m sitting in the den with my siblings. It’s the only casual room in the house, but it feels too exposed, too normal a place to be having this kind of conversation. I go to my room instead. I hate spending time in there — it’s too large and empty, it’s the complete opposite of our room at Watford — and it puts me on edge. But I know that I won’t be bothered there at least. 

I’m about to be vulnerable. And I need to do it in private.

_**BP:** Let’s even the score, then. You can ask me any question, and I promise to answer it._

_**BP:**  As long as it’s not stupid._

I send the messages and then throw my phone on my bed, away from me. I know what his question will be. I don’t know why I feel compelled to trust him, to open up and share this, to allow him an insight into my life.

When I hear the phone buzz, I flinch.

_**SS:**  Do you like Agatha?_

Is this seriously his question? I laugh loudly. I just gave him the opportunity to prove three years of suspicions. I just promised to tell him if I was a vampire, and he didn’t ask. 

I suppose he doesn’t have to. He already knows. We both know he knows. The charade is just in pretending that he doesn’t.

_**BP:**  Are you serious?_

_**BP:**  Any question at all. Carte blanche access to my demented inner psyche, and you ask if I have a crush on your girlfriend?_

_**BP:**  Are we 12?_

_**BP:**  Should we braid each other’s hair next?_

_**SS:**  stop being a shit and answer_

I was more prepared to admit to drinking blood than I was to admit that I have been purposely stringing on Snow’s girlfriend for years. I don’t have a soul, but I know that my actions are pretty monstrous, even by my standards.

_**BP:**  No, I don’t._

His replies come slamming in, one after another. He is really not afraid to double text.

_**SS:** its ok if you do_

_**SS:**  I saw you in the woods_

_**SS:**  you two, I mean, last year_

_**SS:**  and I see you stare at her_

_**SS:**  im not thick, I’ve seen it_

_**SS:** I don’t think I make her happy_

_**SS:**  I don’t think you would make her happy either tho_

_**SS:**  but you have more in common than we do_

_**SS:**  me and Aggie I mean_

_**SS:**  I guess I just mean its ok _

_**SS:**  I think she likes you_

_**SS:**  I guess theres just other shit to worry about you know?_

_**SS:**  idk if I’m gonna come out of this and I guess its just_

_**SS:**  not fair for her to wait around for that, or have to be there_

_**SS:**  I guess I just think she shouldn’t have to do whats expected of her_

_**SS:**  I think people expect her to be with me. But thats kind of shit, isn’t it?_

_**BP:**  Please stop talking._

I say it just to shut him up for a moment, not because I want him to go. But I truly can’t sit here and watch my phone have a seizure as Snow gives me permission to date his girlfriend after his death. Does he think he’s being noble? Is he trying to pass Wellbelove off like some precious prize in an act of heroic martyrdom so that she won’t be tied to his gorgeous corpse?

I hate hearing him talk about his death like this. 

_**BP:** I am not interested in Wellbelove. I never have been, and I never will be. _

Because I’m gay. But I don’t send that.

_**BP:** I’ve only paid attention to her to get under your skin._

_**SS:** well that’s shitty._

_**BP:** I’m a shitty bloke._

_**SS:** you can ask a question if you want. I’ll answer._

 

**SIMON**

The thing about Baz is that he’s always pulling more out of me. I don’t know how he does it. Sometimes he pushes and pushes and pushes and wears me down, and other times I just offer it right up. Anger, tears, accidental emotional outbursts. Somehow he brings it out of me.

I thought about asking him if he is a vampire, but that seemed like a waste of a question. I know he’s a vampire. 

I also don’t want him to confirm it. This thing we’re doing, whatever it is, it would sort of be ruined if real life came crashing in. I can vent my anger and frustration about the Mage, but I can’t exactly pretend that vampires aren’t evil.

So I guess it’s better to have plausible deniability. 

_**BP:**  What happened last term? With Bunce._

I should have expected this, but it hits me heavily all the same.

I sigh. I’m back at the home by now. I skipped dinner; I shouldn’t have, but this conversation got me worked up, so I’m in the bunk room now, laying on my bed. It seems like I’m always laying here, talking to Baz.

_**SS:**  we got kidnapped by the humdrum_

_**BP:**  Everyone knows that. You’ve faced it before though. I can’t imagine that would scare you. _

He can’t possibly know that he’s dancing around the biggest secret I have. The one that the Mage absolutely would not want the Old Families to know; that the Humdrum has a shape. That the shape is me.

And there’s a deeper part to his question as well. It’s not just the Humdrum that’s bothering me. It’s what came after. It’s the wings that I grew; the wings that dissolved in Penny’s hands. The blood that wouldn’t stop leaking from my pores. The ever present fear that the Humdrum is just going to snatch me from my bed. But I can’t tell Baz that. I can’t tell him that I flew. 

_**SS:** my magic went off and things got weird. dark. I don’t want to get into it_

I guess he can’t pull everything out of me.


	5. I love the passing of time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! thank you for reading thus far.   
> content warning: slight homophobia
> 
> **the song that Baz plays in this chapter is, as you might guess, "This Must Be The Place" by the Talking Heads. I'm 100% positive he's playing the Kishi Bashi cover of it in the book. If you haven't heard, listen to it here!  
> https://spoti.fi/2GetIvc

**SIMON**

On my second month of silence from Penny, I break.

I’ve been losing control more, feeling myself slip, and I kind of knew that I was heading toward this. It’s a bad day to begin with. It’s a Saturday, so I’ve been starving all day. I got into it with one of the older boys, so I’m not allowed to leave for the park outing. He came up on me while I was staring out the window, my cross in my mouth.

“I hear you’ve got a phone. Alright if I use it?” He at least tried to be somewhat polite at first. But I just shook my head. 

“Bugger off.”

He didn’t like that. He started laying into me right there in the rec room. Calling me names, bitching about my smoking, just pushing and pushing and pushing until I stood up and I could feel my magic coming to the surface. 

It was different than when I fight with Baz. Baz pushes and pushes and when I meet the challenge, he stands his ground. I could probably set him on fire and he’d just stay there, refusing to show weakness first. 

But this kid didn’t stick around long enough for anything to happen — the sight of me advancing on him was enough. Somehow the fact that the kids run from me makes it worse. It makes me feel like a monster.

One of the women at the front desk heard him telling the other kids and bitching about the smoke smell though, so here I am, punished for smoking inside. What a great fucking joke of the universe.

And now my magic is leaking. I’m having a hard time getting it back under control — as if I had any control before — and my hands are shaking. I’m alone in the room, again. So I text Baz. He’ll distract me.

 **SS:** need distraction. what are you doing?

He responds immediately, thank magic.

_**BP:**  Practising._

_**SS:**  practising what?_

_**BP:** Violin._

This isn’t exactly the distraction I hoped for. I had expected him to push at me, to apply pressure from another angle so I could try to focus on that and beat the magic down. But instead he’s just playing his violin. I’m here, clinging to sanity and trying not to set things on fire, and he’s in his huge house performing a concerto.

_**SS:**  why do you hate merwolves?_

I’m just going to throw questions at him until I calm down or he lays into me.

_**BP:**  They’re disgusting crimes against nature._

_**SS:**  do you have a butler?_

_**BP:**  No._

The younger kid who’s been following me around creeps into the room, sees me, then pauses. I give him one nod, trying to look reassuring, and he nods back, then sits down on his bed and starts reading. After this morning, I don’t think any of the boys will give me shit about my phone.

_**SS:**  whats your buggiest fear _

_**SS:**  biggest* _

_**SS:**  but yes also bugs, for or against?_

_**BP:**  Please stop talking, I’m trying to play._

_**SS:**  do you piss blood?_

I smile. I can’t help it. The question hit me some point in fifth year, after I became convinced that he was a vampire. I see him drink sometimes, normal things, but if he drinks blood, where does it go?

I once thought about sneaking up on him when he went to piss, but that seemed too far. I’m pretty positive he would have killed me, Anathema or not. I’d deserve it.

It’s only been seconds since I sent the text, and I realise he’s probably going to stop answering, but instead he does something he’s never done before. He calls me.

My pulse spikes. Why is he calling me? Is it a mistake? Are we really going to… are we really going to talk on the phone?

I look over and the younger boy — Collin? — is staring at my ringing phone. I growl at him.

“Not a fucking word about this,” I say. “And don’t listen.”

Collin looks terrified, but I think he’s surprised I didn’t make him leave. He just nods silently.

Then I pick up.

“If you’re going to insist on bothering me while I’m busy, at least do it this way so I don’t have to keep putting my violin down,” I hear him snap through the phone.

I grin. It feels good to hear his aggressively posh voice.

“So do you?” I ask. It feels weird to talk on the phone with someone else in the room. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked to anyone on the phone before, actually.

“Do I what?” I can hear him plucking on strings, and his voice is a bit far away, like I’m on speakerphone.

“Do you, you know….” I trail off. I don’t want to ask about pissing blood in front of Collin.

“Is someone around?” he asks. Fuck, he’s smart. I always forget how perceptive he is.

“Pretty much always,” I answer in a resigned voice. I shrug, but he can’t see it.

“Are you going to go off?”

I pause. I’m not. I feel calmer since talking to him, but I can still feel my magic. It’s more present than it should be, and while I’m not shaking, I can smell it. It’s not where it should be.

“Earlier, yeah,” I say. “I’m trying to work on it now.”

I hear him sigh, like this is excessively aggravating to him, and I feel myself go on edge again.

“I have to practise. Would you care to listen? It might remind you of all those thrilling times you and Bunce stalked me fifth year.”

I wince a bit at the mention of Penny, but I nod. Then I remember he can’t see me. 

“Sure, alright then.”

This is weird, isn’t it?

But then he starts to play. I actually recognise it — it’s not some stuffy Mozart or whatever. It’s a Talking Heads song.

I close my eyes (because what else is there to do?) and listen.

He’s good. He’s really good. I already knew that though. Penny and I trailed him enough, and I used to find reasons to hang around outside his practise room because I was sure the violin was a front. I mean, seriously, who plays violin?

But I’ve never heard him really play before. He won’t practise in our room, so it’s always been this kind of distant, weird thing he went off to do, which may or may not have been a front for an evil plan. 

And hearing him play something real — not that classical music isn’t real, but you know — it’s just different. It’s nice. And it’s really soothing, actually.

My eyes are getting heavy as he’s coming to the end of the song, and I’m thinking I might actually fall asleep, which would be a bit embarrassing, when I hear the door fly open.

It’s two of the older boys, and I don’t think they realise I’m here. My bunk is next to the door, so unless you turn to look, you won’t see it. Instead they’re heading toward Collin, who has looked up from his book with sheer terror in his eyes.

“Where’s your boyfriend today, eh poof?” one of the boys says. I know Baz heard, because he stops playing and I hear him say “what?”

Collin is frozen in fear, looking past the boys with his eyes locked on me.

“Got nothing to say? What does your boyfriend think about that, eh? Not terribly brave when Saint Snow int around.”

Oh. I’m the boyfriend.

Some of the boys call me Saint Snow behind my back because of the cross. Not because they think I’m weirdly pure or something. It’s the opposite — they’re all fairly sure I’ve killed a man.

This explains why Collin always seems to be around though. I was right, he’s using me for protection.

He’s just realised that I’ve worked it out, and I see his eyes flick to the door, then the floor, like he can’t tell who he should be more afraid of, me or them.

 

**BAZ**

“What did you just say?”

I’ve stopped playing. I heard him mumbling something over the speakerphone, and I had actually almost forgotten he was there, listening to me play. The words are spotty but I hear something about “boyfriend.”

I pause to listen closer, and I hear it again. Except it’s not Snow speaking. It sounds like someone speaking to him. Are they asking where his boyfriend is?

What?

Oh. The phone. One of the other delinquents in his home must be giving him a hard time about being on the phone.

I shouldn’t have called him. I almost didn’t, but he was prattling on, and asked for a distraction, and I was in the middle of playing and I just…didn’t think.

I hear the voice again, louder this time.

“Get the fuck off my bed, queer.”

I freeze at the word “queer.” What the fuck is going on over there?

I hear a noise that sounds like bed springs and then —

“Leave off. He’s just reading.”

That’s Snow’s voice. It’s farther away, like he’s moved away from the phone. 

“Get the fuck away from me, Snow. I saw you almost kill Tim earlier.”

“Good. Then get the fuck away from Collin or I’ll cave you in next.”

Who is Collin? Who is Tim? 

Snow sounds different. I’ve always thought he sounds like a street urchin — I’ve told him so — but now I realise he actually is trying to speak properly at Watford. The elocution lessons have paid off. His words now are slurred, with a deep accent that sounds like it’s from Manchester. And he sounds terrifying.

“I wasn’t going to touch your fuck boy Snow, he’s just on my bed.” That’s the first boy who spoke. 

Seriously, what the fuck? Snow has a fuck boy?

“You’re hysterical, truly hysterical. Think you’re going to insult me by calling me queer? Get the fuck over yourself. That’s Collin’s bed.”

I can’t keep up. I’ve been thrown in the middle of a drama and I have no context.

There’s a scuffle noise and then I hear the first boy again.

“I’m not scared of you,” he says. Even I can tell he’s lying. He sounds ready to piss his pants.

There’s more movement then, sounds of distress, and then—

The unmistakable sound of someone’s nose breaking. 

I’d recognise the sound of Snow’s fist hitting cartilage any day. I’m acutely familiar with it.

“Leave Collin be or I’ll bash your fucking head in,” Snow growls. Actually growls. He sounds like a complete thug. “And stop bitching about my smoking.”

Snow smokes? Oh, he means his magic.

Who is Collin?

There’s silence, in which I can only assume the boy who just had his face caved in is fleeing from the room. 

“Alright, Collin?” Snow asks. 

“Yeah, alright. Uh, thanks,” says another voice. A new one. The speaker sounds about twelve. He also sounds terrified.

Collin must be a younger boy, then. 

I hate that this realisation calms me.

I hear the scream of bedsprings again, and then there’s a long silence before Snow is back in my ear. Is he going to explain what just happened? Does it happen often? Does he spend every day in care beating the shit out of other boys? It sounds like he was protecting another boy though. Classic fucking Snow. If he doesn’t have his own fight, he’ll join someone else’s.

“Sorry bout that. Some of the other boys are thick,” he says finally.

I school my tone calm and dismissive. I don’t want him to know that this has rattled me.

“Not a problem. I’m going to keep playing. Still need a distraction?” I ask lightly. My hand is clenched by my side. 

There’s a long silence, and I hear Snow sigh. It sounds like a good sigh. A relaxed sigh.

“Yeah, that would be great.”

So I pick up my violin, and play him another song. I’ll keep playing for the rest of my life if it brings him comfort.


	6. you're standing here beside me

**SIMON**

Baz isn’t answering. 

He does this sometimes, so I try not to worry when break time comes and I see he didn’t answer any of my messages from this morning. I keep my phone on me for the rest of the work day, just in case. 

But it’s okay. Really.

Once, he stopped texting for two days, and that was a bit rough, but only because I just wanted to know what he was up to. You know, what he was planning. Also, I kept losing my cool. I wanted to call him again, but since he wasn’t answering my texts, it felt weird to ask him to call and talk to me, or play something.

Really weird.

So I just let that go.

When he came back, he called me. Just out of the blue, right as I was getting off work. He claimed he was driving, and just saw my messages. He told me he’d been at a reunion with his family in London. I know he meant a meeting of the Old Families. But all I could focus on was that he’d been here. In London. 

I guess the only reason that I’m so nervous about it today is just because I kind of got heavy on him yesterday. I didn’t mean to. We were just talking and I was rambling a bit, and now I think I’ve crossed that weird line where you tell a casual friend things that are far too personal. I feel a bit jittery about it. I also don’t even know if he’s a friend. Which makes this a bit more embarrassing.

He’s still silent when it’s time for me to get off work. I usually text him when I get off to tell him how many sausage rolls I ate — I sometimes inflate the number, because he clucks when he thinks the number is too low. I’ll definitely be inflating today; I’ve been a bit too anxious and in my head to stomach much.

I’ve got five minutes left in work, and then I’ll tell him I ate five rolls, and he’ll call me fat. It’ll be good. It’ll be usual.

But when I come around the counter to clock out, what I see is not usual.

Baz.

I choke. I actually choke, and I make this weird demented noise from my throat, and he turns, and he actually fucking smiles.

“Snow,” he says. “You off then?”

My coworker is watching this exchange in fascination. She and I don’t speak much. I can tell what she’s wondering: how is the awkward kid from the boy’s home friends with this posh bloke? 

I’m wondering that too.

And friends. I’m wondering if we’re friends.

“Yeah, alright,” I say, like it’s a normal occurrence to see Basilton Grimm-Pitch standing in a Greggs in Dagenham, and I follow him outside.

He looks good. He’s dressed casually — more casually than I’ve ever seen, in a short sleeve button down with the sleeves rolled up, some kind of fit looking trousers that are cropped just at his ankles and fancy loafers.

I’m wearing track shorts and too large trainers.

“Before you fall all over yourself, I’m visiting Fiona,” he says quickly, not looking at me.

“How’d you find me?” I ask breathlessly. He’s striding toward a parked car. It looks more expensive than anything that has ever been parked on this street. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye and smiles again. Then he sneers.

“I followed the scent. Your magic reeks from forty kilometers away.” 

“Really?” I ask, dumbfounded. He sneers again.

“No, you numpty. I know where you work.” He opens a car door for me. “How long till you have to be back?”

“An hour.” I’m trying not to marvel at the interior of the car, or at his presence, or at him.

I’m failing.

I’m so surprised to see him that my chest feels tight. This is the happiest I’ve been in months because Baz, here, staring at me like I’m a moron, is like being thrown a life raft when I didn’t realise I was drowning. It’s a bit of home.

“Good,” he says. “Let’s eat. I’m famished.”

 

**BAZ**

Snow is kind enough to not point out that I don’t actually eat the kabob I order, but he tears into his with abandon.

He’s thin. He’s so thin. Does he always look this thin when he comes back? I can’t remember. 

I don’t want to take him back. I want to keep feeding him and feeding him and then take him home. To my home.

He’s chatting and acting happy, but he seems a bit shellshocked to see me. I try to quiet the anxiety and self consciousness that’s telling me I misread, that this texting thing has just been a strange summer phase, that we’re still enemies and are going to fight to the death next year.

“You goin to eat those chips?” he asks, interrupting my thoughts. I shove them at him. Maybe he’s not weirded out. Maybe he’s just hungry.

“Snow,” I say slowly. “What are the odds you can leave tomorrow for a bit?”

Even if he says none, I’ll make it work. I’ll break him out myself, even if I set fire to the entire home. Instead he just shrugs.

“Sure, shouldn’t be a problem. I’m eighteen now so I can leave whenever,” he says, popping another chip in his mouth.

I freeze.

“When did you turn eighteen?”

He slows his eating for a moment and looks slightly uncomfortable.

“Yesterday, actually,” he says sheepishly.

I make my face blank and impassive. So that explains yesterday. Yesterday is the reason I’m here.

He spent the whole day texting me, even when he was at work, and I could tell he was down about something. He never broached it, but his texts were unrelated garbles of half thoughts and long-winded rambles about the Mage, Penny and our futures.

_**SS:**  Do you think the Mage will ever shave off his mustache?_

That one had delighted me.

_**SS:** It’s just I’ve never really lived in the world of mages, you know? Not aside from school. I’ll die for them when it comes time, but it’d be nice to at least know some of them._

That one had terrified me.

_**SS:**  What are u doing after Watford? _

_**BP:**  I’ve always assumed my family and I would be in a tomb with your sword through our hearts._

_**SS:**  nah u’ll come thru. I’ll make sure u all do. Just don’t kill me first_

That had changed my entire fucking world.

And this is what he was thinking about on his 18th birthday. 

It had scared me, I won’t lie. Scared and confused me more than I could have expected, and all I could think about was seeing him. Making sure he’s alright. Getting him to explain.

Now I know why he’s been desperately reaching out to Penny all summer. It feels awful. So I took the car, told Fiona I’d be with her for the weekend and spent the day stalking all the Greggs locations in East London.

“Happy birthday, Snow,” I say. It’s late. But this changes everything. Absolutely everything.

He shrugs, smiles, and takes another chip from my plate. I want to take his hand, but I don’t. I feel like I’m burning up from the inside. 

Crowley, I missed him.

I drop him off a street away from the home; he doesn’t want the other boys to see my car. I hate that he has to anticipate things like that. He promises to meet me in the same place tomorrow.

“Be outside sharp,” I remind him before he slams the door. He nods and waves like he’s going to shrug me off, but then he pauses, the door still open, and leans back down into the car.

“Hey Baz?” he says tentatively. I raise one eyebrow. “Thanks for coming. It’s great to see you. Really great.”

And then he’s gone, and I feel like he’s taken all the oxygen with him.

It’s for the best though. I have plotting to do.

 

**SIMON**

Baz came to see me.

I still can’t believe it. And he’s coming to see me again tomorrow.

I don’t think he’s telling the truth though, about why he’s here. I think he came because I confused him.

Yesterday was rough, and I’m a little embarrassed. The past few years, my birthday has been great. The Mage shows up the day before, like clockwork, and he’s always got some kind of plan. Hunting goblins. Saving leprechauns. Tracking down an endangered plant species to make a potion that will cure a manticore bite. 

I didn’t think of it as a birthday tradition until he didn’t show up.

The whole thing had me on edge, and I was jittery and self conscious and angry. So Angry. And Baz was just…there. He kept answering. He kept saying the right things, and making me laugh, and dismissing my comments when I got too bleak.

Mostly, he kept me from thinking too much about the Mage, and my life, and how disappointed I am in the way it’s gone so far.

If he did come to see me because of that, if it wasn’t a coincidence, I think that means something. I think that means we’re friends.

Penny says I have too many friends. She’d tell me I don’t need another. But right now I feel pretty fucking alone. Except for Baz.

And he’s seeing me again tomorrow.

I don’t sleep. How can I? I’m nervous and excited and can’t wait and my magic is leaking a bit and I hear the other boys coughing all night long because of it. At least they can see I’m not smoking, so they won’t give me shit about it. Even if they do, I don’t care. 

I sign out as soon as the office opens in the morning. The lady at the desk gives me a beady eye, but I don’t have to explain anything to her. I just agree to be back by curfew, and then I’m gone, out the door, into the heat to meet Baz.

He agreed to wait down the street for me. It would be too fucking weird for the office ladies or the other boys to see me stroll out and get in a Jaguar. They already think I’m weird enough. So I set off in that direction.

I don’t see his car when I turn down the street, but it’s still early yet. No one is even out, except for me and a couple heading this way on the other side of the street. 

I lean against a wall and decide to wait for Baz there, but when I look up the couple has crossed the street and picked up speed. All of a sudden the woman shouts and starts running toward me.

Crowley, here we go. 

My hand flies to my hip instinctively and I start to call for my sword when the woman shouts again, and suddenly she’s closer, hair flying in the wind, glasses slipping down her nose and then she’s here, crashing into me, gripping me tight.

The force of Penny’s hug nearly knocks me over, and I grab her tightly as I crush her to me. In an extremely un-Pennylike show of emotion she won’t let go, and I look over her head to see the bloke she was with come strolling up, his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.

“Happy birthday, Snow,” Baz says.

I think I’m going to fucking cry.

 

**BAZ**

He can’t stop smiling. 

He’s been looking between Bunce and me since we sat down for breakfast, his head bobbing back and forth like a doll, and he hasn’t stopped smiling for a moment.

I love him like this.

Bunce has questions though. I can see them practically waiting to spill out of her, but she’s keeping them under lock. For now. I imagine they’ll come flying out the second I leave them alone.

She was strangely compliant when I contacted her yesterday morning. I’d gotten her number from Wellbelove the day before, and had planned to send it to Snow, or tell her to check Snapchat, or do something. I was going to drive to London, make sure he was alright, and give him the number.

But then I got plotting. 

Bless Bunce, she has a suspicious mind, and when I called her up (Wellbelove told me she had just gotten in from America the day before) and asked if she’d like to see Snow, she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t ask why his sworn nemesis was organising a reunion. Just gave me her address and the unspoken promise to unpack this whole thing later.

“He’s been trying to reach you all summer,” I told her on the drive over. “But he’s such a moron, he couldn’t remember your number.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me?” I didn’t intend to sound so condescending. I need Bunce, if this plan is going to work. 

“I meant how would Simon have told you? How do you know where he is? How have you been in contact? He never lets me contact him.” She was starting to get worked up, and I shrugged.

“Snapchat. And I think you’ll find that Snow has a slightly different view on his summer holidays this year.”

“Whats that supposed to mean?”

I took a deep breath. I had to trust her.

“It means that some of the gold appears to have worn off of the Mage’s lily, and Snow isn’t so keen on being sidelined.”

“And you care why?”

“Because he’s miserable. And he’s exposed, rotting in some juvenile center where he doesn’t eat and gets in fights daily.”

Bunce was quiet. Too quiet. She can see right through me.

“Why are you bringing me to him?”

I finally smiled when I turned to her.

“Because I have a plan. And I need a partner who’s smart and emotionally manipulative. And I think you’re the woman for the job.”

I’m not sure how to bring it up to Snow though. He seems so happy; I hate to burst this bubble. But if this is going to happen, I need time to prepare for it. Best to rip off the bandaid.

“Snow,” I say when there’s a break in the conversation about Bunce’s boyfriend. “Have you ever considered leaving care?”

Bunce flicks her eyes to me, then back to Snow. He’s frozen, a chip in his mouth. He shrugs. 

“Yeah. Loads. But where would I go? Seems mad to get a flat for a month before school.”

I tamp down the rising nausea in my stomach at what I’m about to say.

“But if you had somewhere to go, you’d be willing to go? Even though the Mage doesn’t want you to?”

Bunce is staring between us, like she can’t believe what’s happening. I can’t believe it either, honestly.

“Yeah, I suppose. But where would I go? No one’s going to piss off the Mage by taking me in, and he’d find me at whoever’s house I went to.”

“What if you stayed with someone who’s already on the outs with him?” Bunce asks breathlessly, jumping in. “What if you stayed somewhere he’d never ever look for you. Would you do it?”

Snow narrows his eyes and eats another chip.

“Where would we find someone like that?”

Bunce and I look at each other and she sighs.

“Ta da,” I say, holding out my hands and shaking them slightly. I infuse the words with as much condescension as possible.

Snow laughs loudly.

“I can’t go stay with the Pitches,” he says. “Your family would never do it. And that would be like going to the other side. Turning dark or something.”

“Snow,” I say quietly, leaning in. “Were you serious about what you said? About not fighting us, about making sure I make it through?”

Bunce has rested her hand on her chin and is looking at me thoughtfully. She’s too interested. 

Snow nods.

“Well, I’m not going to fight you either. I’m going to trust you. And I’ll ask that you trust me. If you would like to, you can stay with my family. And they’ll agree.”

Snow just stares. His mouth is open, and he’s getting worked up, and I expect his magic to start leaking everywhere.

“Why would they agree? I’m the enemy?”

He says it like it’s a question. Like he doesn’t fully believe it. 

“Because you don’t have to be. My family is endlessly pragmatic. They’ll see the light.”

Snow looks to Bunce then back to me.

“Why?”

He’s not asking why my family would agree. He’s asking why I’m offering. I shrug.

“Because somehow, you’re my friend.”

It’s true. And it amazes and terrifies me.

I’m uncomfortable being this honest in front of Bunce though.

“And anyway, it’s far easier to make you miserable in person than it is over text.”

I lean back and pull a piece of invisible lint from my shoulder.

“Penny?” Snow asks. “What…uh. What do you think?”

Bunce purses her lips.

“I think…Crowley, Simon. I think the Humdrum could snatch you again and no one would know you were gone. If you’re with Baz, he’d at least notice you’re missing.”

I nod. Excellent point, Bunce.

“And I think I’d feel better knowing that you’re with someone, and tuned into our world. I hate you being alone. Especially after…”

She stops and looks at me.

I wonder what this big secret is that Snow has been dancing around all summer. Clearly Bunce is in on it too. I wonder if I’ll ever be allowed to know. I wonder if we’ll ever bridge that divide.

Snow clears his throat, and nods.

“We should tell him.” He’s speaking to Bunce about me like I’m not here. “If I say yes….if we do this….he should know.”

His gaze turns back to me, and his blue eyes drill into mine. I almost can’t breathe from the intensity of his stare.

“The Humdrum has my face,” he says. Just lays it out there.

“I’m sorry, what?” I lean forward. “You’re the Humdrum?”

“No!” he shouts, far too loudly. “It just…looks like me. It’s not me, but it looks like young me. Like eleven year-old me.”

He’s got to be joking.

I start laughing.

 

**SIMON**

I’ve got no fucking clue what’s going on.

Baz is laughing. Uncontrollably laughing, in short sharp bursts that show off his teeth and — yep, definitely a glint of fangs. His long, slender fingers grasp the table and he tries to contain himself.

“You’re the Chosen One….but you’re also the Humdrum,” he says. He’s still laughing.

“I’m not!” I hiss. “I swear, I’m not.”

He nods, his laughter slowing. But small giggles still escape him, bursting out of him and causing his dark hair to fall into his eyes. Why the fuck is this funny?

“Okay. Alright. So you’re not the Humdrum, but it has your face. Noted.” He sobers a bit. “Is this what you’ve been having nightmares about all summer?”

I blush and look down. Penny is staring at me, like she can’t believe that we’re sitting here at a table with Baz, sharing secrets. I can’t believe it either, honestly.

“No,” I say tightly. “It’s about what happened after.”

“Simon,” Penny starts, but I shake my head and meet her eyes. 

“I trust him, Pen.” I don’t know why, but I do. I exhale, and turn back to him. To his dark grey eyes.

“I flew. I grew wings, without a spell, and I flew. And then Penny spelled them away and they….disintegrated in this mess of blood and feathers and bone and it hurt like fuck. And then we caught the train back.” My eyes look down at the table. “I didn’t tell the Mage about the wings.”

Baz is staring at me. The laughter is gone, and he leans in. I’m still looking down, and I see his long fingers grow nearer.

“You can’t tell my family. You can’t tell anyone,” he says softly. “If you say yes, and we do this, you can’t tell them.”

I startle. I wasn’t expecting this. But Penny is nodding.

“I agree. Baz is right, we can’t tell anyone. I haven’t told anyone. Not even Micah.”

I exhale the breath I’ve been holding.

“Still willing to let me stay then?” I ask hesitantly. 

Baz nods.

“Promise not to kill me?” I ask. He pauses.

“At least not until we’re back at school.”

Crowley, he can’t be straight for even a minute.

“Alright,” I say at last. I meet Baz’s eyes again. “Alright, let’s do this.”

And he smiles.

A full, true smile, and I swear, I can see something that looks like relief there. He taps his fingers on the table and pushes back. 

“Very well then. I have some arrangements to make. Bunce, I’ll come pick you up later. Snow, I’ll text you tonight. Can you be ready and out, same time tomorrow?”

I nod. I could be out today. But I won’t rush this. He smiles, and looks like he’s going to say something else, but he just nods, claps Bunce on the shoulder, and exits the shop. 

The moment the bell rings behind him, Penny turns on me.

“Okay seriously, what the fuck is going on?”


	7. cover up and say goodnight

**SIMON**

I sign the papers, I initial a clipboard, and then I’m gone. 

I’m officially, legally, finally signed out of care. I’ve imagined this day since I was old enough to imagine. It’s not even remotely the scenario I would have pictured. When I was younger, I’d be leaving care to go be with my parents. Or to go be a famous footballer. When I got older, I thought I’d leave care and go stay with Penny, or Agatha, or to go live with the Mage. 

I never thought I’d be leaving care to go live with Baz. 

This is probably the worst idea I’ve ever had. It’s going to have massive, awful, horrible repercussions, especially when the school year starts and I have to face the Mage and explain myself. But I’m so fucking desperate and happy to have a chance out, I honestly think I’d go shack up with the Humdrum himself.

I’m supposed to give the ladies at the front desk my new address and fill out loads of other things, but I just take the papers and say I’ll mail them in. I know I won’t.

I hitch my bags (just two — one with clothes, the other full of leprechaun gold) and walk out the door into the bright, perfect heat of summer.

I had planned to meet Baz at the same place as yesterday — that’s what we agreed — but when I push through the doors I see him parked (illegally) out front. He’s leaning against the Jag, looking cool as hell in his shades and holding a coffee and a brown bag of some sort.

“Morning, Snow,” he says, holding up the coffee in greeting. “Breakfast?”

They’re probably the best words I’ve ever heard.

The drive to Hampshire is only two hours, and we speed along the M25 in comfortable silence for a bit. Baz switches gears effortlessly, his eyes never leaving the road, and I destroy the food he’s brought. (Scones. Of course.)

I watch the landscape flick by. I’ve never gone this way before; only ever north to Manchester, or west to Watford by train. I let the warm summer sun wash over me and listen to the soft sound of the radio as we drive, and even though I know I’m making a stupid decision and probably about to walk into a trap, it feels good. It feels really fucking good.

“Why?” I ask him finally. We’ve been on the road for about an hour, and are transitioning to the M3. I go to put my coffee back in the holder, and his left hand jostles mine as he reaches for the gear shift. He slaps my hand out of the way, and I slap his hand back.

“Why what?” he asks, shifting forward to look out the mirror before he merges. 

“You know why,” I say gruffly. I don’t want to have to spell it out. Yesterday he said we were friends, but it still seems surreal.

He sighs and his eyes snap back to the road.

“People shouldn’t be discarded,” he answers simply.

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never used that word to think of myself, but he’s not wrong. But furthermore, it’s weird, to imagine that Baz thinks I have any inherent worth as a person. Especially since he spent six years telling me I don’t.

I adjust my seat, unsure of what to say, when he glances at me and grins evilly.

“Besides, even Harry fucking Potter got to spend summers with the Weasleys.”  
I snort. I can’t help it. This entire situation is so fucking implausible.

“Are you saying you’re Ron?”

Baz sneers.

“Of course not. If anyone’s Ron, it’s you.”

I scrunch my nose. That’s fine, honestly. Ron’s alright. But I don’t think I’m Ron. 

“Who are you then?” I ask. Baz grins, a sharp, toothy grin that’s all angles and no good.

“I’m Draco, obviously.”

I huff.

“I think you’re more of a Snape.”

Baz glances at me sideways for a moment, then looks back to the road.

“Thank you, Snow,” he says, the bad grin back. “I’m touched.”

“It’s the hair,” I tell him. “And the fucked up nose.”

He goes silent, and I laugh.

By the time we reach Hampshire, the comfortable easy feeling within the car has evaporated and I’m starting to freak out a little. I pull my phone out of my pocket and send Penny a text. I promised to update her on how this all goes.

_**SS:**  hey Pen almost there if you don’t hear from me tonight check the pitches’ garden_

The one way road to get there gets tighter and tighter until I realise we’re not on a road, we’re on a private drive, and then the house comes into view and it looks like something out fo fucking Dracula.

I say so to Baz, to try to tamp the uneasiness that’s building within me, but he doesn’t laugh. I think he’s nervous as well because he switches off the engine and turns to look at me.

“Just be honest. Be direct. Don’t mention the wings. Or the Humdrum.” He breathes out through his mouth, then bites his lip. Fuck, he must be really nervous. “I might say some shitty things. Just go with, and for once in your life Snow, find some chill.”

“Wait,” I say as I clamber out of the car. “Do they not know I’m coming?”

My voice goes up an octave. Baz hands me one of my bags from the boot and just shrugs. Do I look like that big of a prick when I shrug?

“I texted them this morning. They’ve had advance warning.”

And then he stalks toward his fucking mansion before I have the chance to answer or have a proper freak out, and I have no choice but to follow, regretting this every step of the way.

 

**BAZ**

Maybe I miscalculated this.

Introducing him to my family is almost physically painful. They know him already — they’ve met him at various events and occasions at Watford, and once at Coven meeting — but they have no idea how to react.

Daphne just stares and keeps calling him Mr. Snow, and everyone is standing uncomfortably like he’s the fucking Queen. My father is entirely silent, and I know he’s terrifying Snow. We’re standing in my father’s study and Snow is boiling with magic that has a sharp, metallic taste to it that usually signals he’s anxious. And no one is speaking.

I suppose this will fall to me.

“Father,” I say, “As I mentioned, I invited Simon to stay the rest of the summer with us. He’s an adult now, and is legally responsible for himself. I should have asked, but I hope you don’t mind.”

My father’s eyes are drilling holes into me, trying to suss out my plan.

I honestly don’t have one.

“Mr. Grimm-Pitch,” Snow starts. Oh Crowley, here we go. “It’s a bit of a shock, I know. And if you’re not comfortable, I’ll leave.”

My father’s eyes snap over to Snow. He uncrosses his arms and sigh.

“Frankly, I don’t understand what’s happening,” he says, far more calmly than I know he feels. “Mr. Snow, would you give my son and I a moment?”

Snow looks at his trainers and nods, but before he can leave I throw out a hand at grab his shoulder

“No, stay,” I tell him. Not softly. Bluntly. Then I look at my father. 

“Let’s clear the air,” I say, attempting to sound diplomatic. “Father, Simon and I are friends.”

He looks more surprised than he did when I tried to tell him I was gay.

“Simon has said he’s uninterested in fighting the Old Families, and I’ve told him I won’t fight him, either,” I continue. “And I’m going to help him fight the Humdrum.”

“What?” My father and Snow say in unison. I nod. Snow is sputtering, and my father looks close to it himself.

“So, suddenly you’ve just completely forgotten about our family’s struggles, because you’re friends with the Chosen One? How did this happen? And why should we trust him?” my father demands. There’s another question, one he won’t say out loud. “When did you go soft?”

Snow’s magic is growing smokier and smokier, but I refuse to meet his eyes. Finally Snow starts to shimmer, and my father turns to him. 

“No offence, Mr. Snow, but your foster father has been raiding our homes all summer looking for dark magic. He’s been enacting tighter taxes and imprisoning our sons for treason. Why should I open my home to you?”  
Snow has gone so red that his freckles have disappeared, and his magic is getting thicker. Merlin, he’s lost any control he had while rotting away this summer. Is he going to go off? I go to speak for him, but my father cuts me off.

“No, Basilton. I want to hear it from him.”

Fuck.

Snow opens and closes his mouth several times, then tugs his hand through his hair.

“He’s not my foster father,” he says finally. “He just made me his heir so that I could go to school. Because your family wouldn’t allow me to if he didn’t.”

The study is terrifyingly silent.

“I’ll be honest. I don’t really care about the Old Family civil war,” Snow continues. “I don’t disagree entirely with the Mage, but it’s just…not my fight. I’m a Normal. This isn’t my business. My business is the Humdrum. I think the Mage is more concerned with keeping your lot in line than he is with fixing the dead spots, and that doesn’t sit well with me. And that’s the truth of it.”  
I’ve never in my life heard Snow so eloquent.

“I’m not going to fight for you,” he says, jutting out his chin in that obstinate, childish way of his. I love it when he does that. “I’m not…turning on the Mage, I’m not going to kill him for you or something. I’m not killing anyone. Anyone. I just want to go to school, and do my job. And my job is fighting the Humdrum. Whatever happens after that, I don’t really care. So. Yeah.”

Snow looks at me and shrugs.

“It would be great to have Baz’s help. But I’ll do it on my own if I have to.”

I look back at my father and I see him thinking. He’s not an idiot. He knows that I’ve just given him everything he’s wanted on a plate: the Mage’s greatest weapon, a chance to consolidate power, and an opportunity to share in the defeat of the Humdrum. 

And also, he’s not devoid of compassion. My family doesn’t show emotion, but that doesn’t mean we don’t feel it, occasionally.

“The Mage sticks him in a boy’s home every summer,” I say quietly. 

I know that this is what will break him. We’ve spent many, many dinners wondering what Snow and the Mage and their merry men are off doing over summer holidays. We’ve both assumed they spent the break planning ways to make us miserable. Neither of us could have ever imagined that the Mage just discarded him over breaks.

“If this is a trick, my son will set you on fire, and I will not stop him,” my father says slowly. I laugh.

“Snow is incapable of plotting, Father. You can see everything on his face, and he says exactly what he’s thinking. Trust me, there’s no artifice here.”

Snow crinkles his brows and my father looks sideways at me for far, far longer than I’m comfortable with, then he nods.

“Very well. Mr. Snow, would you care for some lunch?”

 

**SIMON**

Lunch was awful. 

Everything was stilted and Baz’s little sister — Mordelia, the one from the photo — kept calling me The Chosen One and his parents kept calling me Mr. Snow. Finally Baz sighed.

“You can call him Simon,” he said exasperatedly. I looked up from my plate.

“You don’t,” I’d almost said, but I was relieved that he had corrected them, so I didn’t. We finished the rest of lunch in silence.

Dinner was even worse, because Fiona showed up. 

“There was no fucking way I was missing this shit show,” she announced.

Everyone cringed except for me, mostly because I thought that was a pretty accurate way to describe this whole situation.

I’d assumed that Baz took after his dad — they’ve got the same hairline, the same uncomfortable penetrating glance, and they hold themselves pretty similarly. But after seeing Fiona, I realise that Baz must be one hundred per cent Pitch. The two of them look practically identical, all long limbs and aristocratic brows. Where Baz prefers to judge in silence, however, Fiona is extremely vocal, and spent the entire meal running through a highlight of my greatest failures. She spent almost ten full minutes asking about the old Heart Oak in the Wavering Wood that I accidentally burnt down fourth year. To my immense humiliation, apparently Baz’s great-uncle or something planted it. 

After dinner she and Baz disappeared for a bit and I got stuck sitting around with Mordelia and the two smaller twins, whose names I still haven’t learned. I didn’t mind; they were the least terrifying things in this house. And I figured Baz probably needed a chance to explain everything to Fiona. 

When they came back in, they both reeked of smoke. I squinted my eyes at Baz, and he had the decency to glare back.

“You’re flammable,” I hissed. 

“Fuck off,” he snapped back. Fiona just leaned against the doorway and raised her eyebrows at the exchange. 

She didn’t stick around much longer after that, thank Merlin, and Baz took the opportunity to show me around the house. I’m not sure I’m ever going to navigate it on my own, but at least my room is easy enough to find, and it’s just across the hall from Baz’s.

Unfortunately, it’s haunted as fuck.

I sort of thought Baz had been joking about the wraiths, but it turns out that he was telling the truth, because something is moving under my bed and making weird noises in the closet, and even though I’ve fought a dragon, I’m not here to fuck with wraiths.

_**SS:**  u up?_

I know he’s awake. He’s always awake.

_**SS:**  I think all the wraiths moved into this room_

_**BP:**  Are you seriously texting me from the next room?_

_**SS:**  what are u doing_

The clock next to my bed says its not even 22:30. I know he’s not sleeping. And I’m not going to be able to sleep — at least not yet. And definitely not with these fucking things having a disco under my bed. 

_**BP:**  Watching TV._

_**SS:**  what are u watching_

_**BP:**  Porn._

 

**BAZ**

There’s a knock on my door, and before I have the ability to shout for Mordelia to go back to bed, it opens and Snow walks in.

Snow is in my bedroom. 

I’ve imagined this scenario more times than I care to admit, but never, in all my wildest dreams, does he appear in my room wearing those fucking shorts.

“That’s not porn,” he says, glancing at the TV.

“Yes it is,” I snap. I don’t know why I am the way I am. 

Snow enters my room all the way and closes the door behind him.

“That looks like Hugh Grant,” he says. He ambles over to the bed where I’m sitting, crossed legged, typing on my computer. 

“No it’s not,” I snap. He’s right though. It is. One of the Sky Cinema channels is showing  _Notting Hill_ , and I always stop to watch. I wasn’t exactly expecting Snow to burst in on me. I’m pathetically glad he did though. 

He stands in the middle of the room, staring at the TV for a moment, and I can tell he’s hooked. His mouth is hanging open, his eyes are glued to the screen, and I’ve never seen him so interested. 

With a heavy sigh, I move my books from the end of my bed to make space for him and he stumbles over, not taking his eyes from the set, and flops down on my bed on his stomach. I’m glad I haven’t hunted, or else I’d be brighter than Snow’s red fucking shorts by now. 

We watch in silence for a time, and Snow is swinging his feet absentmindedly, his ankles crossed as he bends them at the knee, and I can’t stand the sight of it. I push my laptop away and fall forward onto my stomach and elbows, so I’m lying next to Snow. He turns and gives me a lazy smile, and I forget to sneer. 

“I’ve never seen this one,” he says, turning back to the screen.

“Really? It’s Dev’s favourite movie. We watch it all the time,” I answer quietly, resting my head in my hands. Snow snorts.

“You watch porn with Dev? That’s some fucked up family bonding.”

I’m about to say something shitty, when the scene distracts me. Hugh Grant is standing in his kitchen talking to Julia Roberts, and they’re talking about love. Hugh Grant is wearing those atrocious glasses and I almost set myself on fire when I remember how many times I’ve thought glasses like that would look good on Snow. 

But far, far more importantly, it’s about to turn into a sex scene. 

I’m about to be laying on my bed, with Simon Snow, watching a sex scene.

There is literally no world in which I want to be here, watching a heterosexual sex scene with Simon Snow. 

I pull out my phone in anticipation and start scrolling through it mindlessly, refusing to look up at the television. I glance at him briefly, and he’s completely and utterly absorbed. I can tell that he’s realised what’s about to happen though, because a small blush starts working up his cheeks. He stops swinging his feet. We both appear to be holding our breath, and when the scene finishes and the story moves on there’s an awkward ease of tension in the room. 

We’re toward the end of the movie when he turns to me. His eyes are hooded and he looks sleepy. He looks perfect. I mentally save this image of him, in my bed, sleepy and happy.

“Can I sleep on your couch? This house is terrifying and I am really not down with the wraiths,” he says. My stomach flips. 

“They won’t hurt you,” I snap. But I snap gently. Snow sighs and turns back to the movie. 

“Everything in this house is horrifying,” he says. 

I try to watch the movie, but all I can think about is Snow sleeping on my couch. Of waking up tomorrow morning with him in my room. Of the fact that we could spend the rest of the summer, right here, watching movies on my bed. And maybe one night we’d fall asleep here. And then he would — no. 

No. Absolutely not. 

The movie is about to end, and I need to hunt. I wait for the final credits, then sit up immediately. 

“Brave the wraiths. If you’re dead tomorrow, I’ll weep over your corpse. Now go to your own room.”

“Are you going to sleep?” he asks, turning to prop his head up on his hand. His curls fall forward into his face. 

“No, I’m going to go eat, then sleep.”

He perks up. 

“Can I come with?” 

Merlin, is he just going to trail me like a dog all summer? I’d almost forgotten how persistently he used to follow me around. 

“No,” I say, because hunting with Snow sounds like a bigger nightmare than watching a sex scene with Snow. 

“But Baz,” he says, grinning. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a boy, asking him for a snack.”

Merlin and Morgana I could jump him in this fucking moment. Pin him down and kiss that shit-eating grin off of his face. But instead I stand and move to the door. 

“Not that kind of snack, Snow,” I say. “Now, out.”

He sits up with a huff and I can hear his joints cracking as he does. Fuck, he’s so alive. He does a spectacle of a stretch, twisting his body this way and that, and I’m about to go insane.

“Crowley, Snow, take your time then,” I sneer. He huffs. “Yeah yeah, good fucking night,” he mutters as he stomps past me and out the door. 

“Goodnight, Snow,” I respond. I watch him cross the hall to his own room, and then I snap the door shut. I wait a moment before I go outside — mostly to make sure he won’t follow — and I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling. 

My bed smells like him.

This is going to be a long summer.

 

 


	8. you got a face with a view

**BAZ**

Here’s something I didn’t expect: my family loves Simon.

Daphne was to be expected. She’s a soft, loving sort, and teen boys with issues are her specialty. She was won over on the second day when she was carrying in boxes for the prep for my father’s birthday party, and he blundered over — in the middle of my sentence — and took them from her.

She looked at him like he was the cryptid in the house.

“Want help with the rest of them, Mrs. Grimm?” (She had to ask him to stop calling her Mrs. Grimm-Pitch, since it’s slightly awkward to be addressed by your husband’s dead wife’s name.)

I expected Daphne to say no, because she has manners, but I guess Snow’s rude eagerness is wearing off, because she let him. I didn’t see him for the rest of the afternoon. 

Fiona, I was on the fence about. 

“Hey Simon, would you wait there for a moment?” she asked him when we were all coming down for dinner at the same time. Simon hovered in place at the top of the stairs and glanced back to where Fiona was leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Should you push him or should I?” she asked.

But then one day we were driving and Fiona put on “ _Hungry Like The Wolf_ ” and Snow sang along with her, his blue eyes wide, his cheeks red with exertion, his curls flopping everywhere, and then he actually fucking howled.

“Basil!” Fiona exclaimed, her eyes wide when she turned to me. “You didn’t tell me the Chosen One was  _fun_.”

“Snow is only fun if your idea of a good time involves getting attacked and killing things.”

Fiona grinned, and a chill went down my spine.

Then Snow complimented her boots. (Because he has no taste.) And now they’re inseparable.

My father was the hold out, and I didn’t expect him to crack. They rarely interact with each other outside of meal times or the rare occasion we’re all in the den and all get sucked into  _Come Dine With Me_  at the same time, which I have thought was for the best. 

Then one day he walks into the den when Snow and I are playing FIFA. I pause and look up immediately, but Snow is engrossed in the game and it takes him a moment to notice my father’s presence. When he does he almost drops the controller in fear.

“Simon, I’ve been thinking,” my father says. Oh Crowley. This is the part where he tells him to leave. Snow’s thinking it too, I can see his face.

“I’d like you to come to my birthday party.”

“What?” Snow and I say at the same time. I’ve already assured Simon that he won’t have to go, he can stay upstairs. 

“I’ve enjoyed having you here, and I’d like you to celebrate my birthday with me. But further, I think it would be a good idea.”

He’s  _enjoyed_  having Snow?

“That’s sort of, er, visible, in’t?” Snow’s nervous. He’s reverted to street slang.

My father nods and leans against a bookcase.

“Yes, it is. But I’ve been thinking. We’re happy to give you a place to stay through the summer, and I’m glad you and Basilton have become friends. I understand you don’t want to upset the Mage, but I think your presence might go further toward establishing some peace than you might think. The Old Families will be there, but so will a lot of others. Families who wouldn’t necessarily side with us against the Mage, were it to come to that.”

I grit my teeth. I didn’t get Simon out of that fucking juvenile home and away from the Mage’s clutches, only to bring him here so my father can now use him.

“I….well, like I said, sir, I’m not going to fight you,” Snow starts to stutter. “But this isn’t really my—”

“Simon, I’m going to stop you.” My father raises his hand. “You’ve been straight with me, I’d like to be clear with you.”

Where the fuck is this going?

“I always put my family first,” my father says calmly. “I will always do what I think is best for the ones I love. My son is the same. We can both be ruthless in our protection.”

I’m stunned. My father has never complimented me like this.

“I believe that helping you is best for my family. I think you boys have the right of it. Help each other fight the Humdrum, handle the rest later. I’d like you to come, because I’d like the Old Families to meet you. They’d like you. And I want the other magical families to see that we can work together. I’d like to be your ally. Publicly.”

Simon sits up straighter and stares.

“So…you’re abandoning the war? You’re going to stop testing the Mage and trying to take over?”

I cringe. Doesn’t Snow know you can’t just say these things? But father laughs.

“No, not at all. What I’m saying is that I’d like to help you defeat the Humdrum, and then I’d like to take power. But I’m going to try it without a war, first.”

I close my eyes and turn to Simon.

“What he means is that he would like the Pitches to share in the glory of defeating the Humdrum, so that he can call a vote of no confidence for the Mage, and make a play at power,” I say. I turn to my father. “Is that accurate?”

“Yes,” my father says. “But I’d also like Simon to have somewhere to come after the war. Think it over; it’s your choice, Simon, and I’ll respect it.”

And then he’s gone.

Snow and I stare at each like the sun has just crashed into the earth. Which I suppose it has, in a way.

“What should I do?” he whispers. He looks terrified.

I sigh and move slightly closer to him, but I don’t touch him; we’re not there. 

“I can’t tell you. I’m not going to become your new drill seargeant, Snow. I said I’d help you. But you’re the one in charge.” I tug my hair out of my face in frustration. “For what it’s worth, I think he was sincere. My father doesn’t lie.”

“What the fuck was that about having a home after the war?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I say. Is it possible my father likes Snow? Am I just genetically engineered to have a soft spot for this moron? “Whatever you’ve done though, you’ve somehow managed to impress him. I’ve never seen my father so supportive.”

“Not even of you?” Snow asks, surprised. 

“Not even of me. I’m…” I pause. “My father doesn’t approve entirely of me.” I almost laugh at the shocked expression on his face. 

“Oh. Is it the, you know…” he brings his hands up and hisses at me. I think he’s attempting to mimic a vampire. I decide to let it pass without comment, this one time.

“No, strangely enough, he’s extremely supportive about me being…that. No, no, my father’s problem is that he’s a Tory, and I’m something far worse.”

I’ve decided to just get it over with. We’re entry level friends now, and all my friends (the few I have) know. I don’t hide it. It’s better to come out earlier than later. And if he runs from me, if he changes the way he acts, then I’d rather know now.

“What’s worse than being….you know…” Snow hisses again. I raise my eyebrow. He looks extremely stupid when he does that.

“Snow, look at me,” I say, gesturing to myself. I’m sitting around to play FIFA in designer trousers. My hair is half-up, and I’ve rolled my button down shirt sleeves up. I look good, but that’s not the point. The point is that I’m gesturing to all of me.

He stares, but he’s not getting it.

“I’m gay,” I snap. I have no issues with being queer, but I hate having to say it out loud. But Snow would never come to the conclusion himself. You can lead a numpty to water, but you can’t make him drink.

“Oh,” he says. Then his eyebrows go up. “Oh.”

I expect him to blush, or freak out, or say something, but instead he just grabs the controller and turns back to his game. 

“Well fuck him then, I’m not going to his shit birthday party.”

I grin. Crowley, I love him.

I knock him on the shoulder and he pauses the game again. 

“Want to go to the village for a pint?” I ask. He grins and throws the controller over his shoulder. 

“Absolutely. I need to get pissed to spend one more night with those fucking wraiths.”

 

**SIMON**

Baz is an alarmingly good drinker.

We’ve both downed more pints than I care to admit, and I feel like I’m spinning a bit. He seems totally fine though, aside from the giggling. And the shouting.

Maybe he’s not a good drinker.

“I swear on Fiona’s head that I didn’t push you!” he shouts at me over the table. I slam my fist down.

“You absolutely did, you punched me in the fucking face!” I shout back. He throws his head back and laughs uproariously. 

“I’m going to throw you down the fucking stairs when we get home, just so I can finally take justifiable credit for it, then,” he says. How the fuck does he manage to be drunk and use words like that? He finishes his ale and stands.

“Another?” he asks.

“Yeah, and a bag of crisps. I’ll be back,” I say, shouldering my way past him and toward the back of the pub. I’m about ready to piss myself. The bathroom looks empty, but I check it for goblins just in case, because they like to hang around in toilets for some reason. But it’s clear of life, so I go to the urinal in the corner, unzip my flies, and lean my hand against the wall as I take a leak. 

Crowley, I’m pissed. 

I didn’t mean to drink so much. But Baz kept drinking, and the more he drank the more he laughed, and I just kept ordering another round because he looked so happy. I can’t remember the last time I saw him so happy. Truthfully, if you’d asked me, I would have assumed Baz would be a sad drunk, given that weird run in we had in the catechombs fifth year. But he’s in great spirits tonight.

I think maybe he’s relieved, after that awkward conversation with his dad. And about telling me. About him. I think he was nervous about me finding out. But the truth is, I don’t care. I only care that he was anxious, to be honest. There was no reason for it. 

He’s on his phone when I get back out, and he flicks his long hair from his face. His phone is going off nonstop in his hand. 

“Bunce is blowing up my phone. Have you spoken to her today? She thinks you’re dead,” he snaps. I shrug guiltily. 

“Nah, it’s been a few days actually,” I respond. Since getting to Baz’s house, my days haven’t been full of nonstop wishing to talk to Penny. We do talk — loads — but it’s not this frantic, desperate need anymore. 

“I told her you’re here and not dead, but she doesn’t believe me,” he says. “Text her.”

“I don’t have my phone,” I say slowly. I think I slurred it actually. 

Suddenly Baz’s arm is around my neck, and he’s pulling me in close, so close, right up to his face. I can smell the ale on his breath, but he faces away from me and holds out the phone. 

“Smile for Bunce,” he orders, and I raise my pint and grin as he takes the photo. 

I glance at it over his shoulder. He looks fit as hell in it. Of course he does. He’s pure dead brilliant at everything, even looking good. His cheeks are flushed with colour and he’s smiling widely to show his teeth. My head is tilted to the side, leaning against his, and I’m smiling so widely that my cheeks have pushed up and my eyes are mostly closed and I look completely pissed.

“I look like a bellend,” I mutter as I take another sip of my pint. Baz nods and puts away his phone.

“Yes, always.”

I don’t know how many rounds we went through, but by the time we leave the pub I have that awful and incredible feeling of being too light to walk properly. Baz isn’t fairing much better, and he keeps swaying into me as we head through the village toward the long hill back to his house. Every time he hits me it sets off another round of laughter, and for some reason he won’t stop humming the Watford school song.

We fall into an easy silence as he head up the hill, probably because we’re both so pissed it takes extra concentration, and I feel full. Not full, spilling. My magic is uncontained, but instead of that boiling leaking feeling I usually have, I feel like a waterfall. Like I have too much in me, and I need to burn it off or set it loose into the atmosphere, or—

Baz sways in front of me. His back is right there, and I wonder what would happen if I —

I reach out, lightly, biting down a laugh, and brush my fingers against his back and just  _push_.

“Aleister fucking Crowley what the fuck was that?” he shouts, jumping. I snatch my hand back.

“Nothing,” I mumble. He turns and rounds on me.

“What the fuck did you do?” he snarls, but his eyes are wide, amused, amazed. He’s smiling.

“Nothing!” I shout. His eyes narrow. Oh fuck. Oh fuck I know that look.

“Tell me,” he says.

I run.

I push past him and I’m running up the hill, I’m running faster than I ever have in my life. Fuck, I’m running faster than anyone ever has. I should play football. I’d be brilliant at it. I’m unstoppable. I’m uncatchable. And then I see the stars.

They’re above me, suddenly, and I’m on my back, and all the breath has been knocked from my body and an aching pain is coming from my chest where something just slammed into me.

The something is moving. It’s Baz. He’s panting and giggling at the same time.

“Get off,” I yell.

“What did you do?” he demands. I shrug.

“I pushed my magic into you.”

“Why?”

That’s a good question.

“Uh… it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He just stares at me. He’s never going to get up and I’m going to die here, on the ground, having to piss.

“People can’t do that,” he says. I really need him to move, his sharp fucking elbow is digging into my bladder. His face is close. So close, he’s just staring down at me, and he’s so unguarded. His hair is brushing my face, and his glazed over eyes are centimetres from mine. He’s so full of wonder at what’s happening. I could just—

I do. I jerk my head up and headbut him in the nose and he rolls off of me with a shout and a curse and I’m up, I’m free.

“I’m going to kill you and wear your thick skull as a helmet,” he shouts from the ground, getting up unsteadily.

And I fucking run.

 

**BAZ**

I’ve left my keys at the pub.

“Just ring the doorbell,” Snow huffs. He’s still out of breath from his short lived run up the hill. He gave up almost immediately, and then bitched at me about it the whole walk back. Snow is a heavy drunk. He staggers like hos shoes weigh ten stone and his mouth hangs open and he breathes heavily, his eyes hooded.

I laugh. I can’t help it, all I’m doing is laughing.

“Snow have you heard the doorbell? It’s like a fucking organ,” I hiss back. He’s bent over trying to get his breath, and he laughs. His drunk laugh sounds like a braying donkey and I fucking love it.

“You’re the fucking Adam’s Family,” he wheezes. “What if we climb?”

“Climb?” I ask. He nods. This is a good idea. This is a great idea. I tap him on the head, too many times.

“Simon what if we climb?”

He opens his mouth and just stares at me, then lets out another braying laugh.

We sneak around to the side of the house my room is on, shushing each other as we go, tripping over plants, until we’re finally looking up to my window.

“I don’t think we can climb,” he says. 

“I don’t think we can climb,” I echo. 

Then I have an idea.

My limbs still feel electrified from whatever the fuck it was Snow did on the hill, and I feel jittery and high and drunk at the same time.

“Do it again,” I hiss, grabbing his hand. He stares.

“Do the thing. The thing the magic thing,” I say insistently. “We can float.”

“We can float?” he asks. 

I nod eagerly and sling an arm around his neck. 

“Do it.” He sighs, and then—

Holy dick.

It’s like he opened the floodgates and he’s rushing into me and it’s magic but it’s also Simon and I feel limitless, tapped into his power and floating lazily in the never-ending sea of him. I don’t know what sex is like but I can’t imagine anything feeling better than being entirely awash in him like this.

“ **On love’s light wings** ” I mutter, and up we go, drifting toward my window like slow, drunk bumblebees. He grips my waist and he’s laughing in my ear, his lips brushing against my cheek, and we slam into my window in a fit of laughter and groans, and when I get it open we stumble into the room, almost crashing to the floor in a heap of limbs.

Snow stumbles toward the bed, wheezing, and collapses onto it.

 

**SIMON**

I can’t get up.

Baz fell on the bed next to me and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move my limbs again.

He’s laughing, and it’s shaking the mattress and the movement makes me feel like I’m going to be sick.

“What’s so funny?” I ask petulantly. 

“You just fucking…pushed,” he says between laughs. “You’re an impossible person. You’re a fucking mess. Nothing about you makes sense.”

I turn my head and scowl at him. 

“Have you done that before?” he whispers. His face is so close. I shake my head. I’m not sure if I’m steady with words right now. “How did you know it wouldn’t set me on fire?”

Fuck. I didn’t know. Oh shit I didn’t know at all.

“Did I hurt you?” I ask, struggling to sit up. I feel more alert now. He shakes his head, his hair fanning out in all directions, and giggles again. Crowley he’s a giggly drunk. 

“No. It felt amazing. It felt….indescribable. Is that what you feel like all the time?”

I shrug. 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel good for me. There’s always too much,” I say. He reaches over and takes my hand. 

“Do it again,” he whispers. I shrug and open myself back up to him. It’s easier this time.

“Is this like a drug thing?” I ask. “Are you going to get addicted or something?” 

He stops laughing at me and just stares. I feel him reaching within, pulling on my magic gently, and then he whispers “ **let there be light** ” and suddenly the room is filled with the trails of a thousand tiny sparks, shimmering off the ceiling and cracking in the corners. I feel them pulling on my magic and burning out and then they’re…gone. And I feel more relaxed. Calmer. Like the excess that’s been building up within me all night is gone and I am now comfortably full rather than spilling at the seams.

And now I’m knackered. I can’t keep my eyes open a moment longer.

“Better?” he whispers.

“Shhh no more talk,” I say. No more sound. No more anything or my head is going to explode. I reach over to put a finger to his lips casually but I miss and end up kind of petting his face with my whole hand, which just makes him laugh more. 

“Hey,” I say, breaking my own silence rule. “I’m going to go to your dad’s birthday party.”

Between us, we’re still holding hands. Why are we holding hands? I don’t even remember why we did that. But now he squeezes mine and his thumb is moving over my knuckles. Fuck that feels good. His skin feels cool to the touch, and between my magic and being drunk, I feel like I’m on fire. I don’t want him to let go.

“Why?” he asks. I shrug. 

“You know,” I say, because I don’t have a good answer. 

“I don’t,” he whispers back. I put my hand on his face again and I feel him laugh against my fingers. Crowley his skin is cold. I grab his other hand and lay it on my forehead and then press my face into the coolness of his palm. The headache that’s building on me slows.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.

“Shh. Shhh. Sleep. No biting, yeah?”

“No promises,” he says. It’s slurred. I can tell he’s falling asleep. Just like I am.

He turns his head to the side and his hair brushes over my face, and I see his eyes close, and his breath pick up. And he’s asleep with a smile on his face, our hands still joined and his arm curled up my chest and his hand on my brow. 

I know I’m completely pissed, but I’ve spent this whole summer wanting to go home. And for the first time, right now, I feel like I’m already there.


	9. I can't tell one from the other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> holy heck guys I love you so so much thank you for all of your kind comments and reviews. holy heck. thanks for coming along this ride.

**BAZ**

“I’m going to the club for one last game, want to come?”

Snow doesn’t even look at me. He’s sitting on my bed in his awful Umbro joggers, entirely sucked into Jeremy Kyle. He does this every day, right as I attempt to do some summer reading, and I hate it.

“Snow,” I repeat. Nothing.

“Simon,” I say again. He grunts. “I’m going to the club for a bit before the party. Do you want to come?”

“Nah, I’m alright,” he says. He’s still not looking at me. “Fiona and I are going to dye my hair.”

“What?” I say. I didn’t say. I shouted. I nearly drop my fucking bag, and I’m ready to have heart palpitations when he looks up lazily from the TV and grins wickedly at me. 

Thank Magic, he was fucking with me. 

Ever since the boot incident, Fiona has been doing her best to turn Snow into a punk. Every time she comes she has some discard for him from one of her Normy boyfriends. He’s already got a collection of band shirts that smell like smoke (and not in the good way), a jacket that is far too snug for his broad shoulders, and to my eternal horror, a pair of boots. (“These would have been perfect for goblin hunting!” he marvelled.)

There are some benefits to it. She got him some black jeans, and now he usually wears proper trousers instead of his awful trackies. And she stopped him from buzzing his entire head like he usually does, and helped him trim up the sides. He looks quite fit, if I may say so. But if she had ruined those bronze curls, I would have ripped her throat out.

“Speaking of Fiona,” I say, “Is she taking us back to Watford tomorrow, or are we taking the train?” This is my world now; I go through Snow to find out my travel arrangements. I truly think my family likes him more than me at times. 

“She’s driving us,” he says, his voice flat. “She’s staying over after your dad’s party tonight, and taking us in tomorrow.” 

“Delightful.” I don’t relish a three hour car ride with those two controlling the music. “I’m off then. I’ll be back before the party,” I say, making my way out the door. He doesn’t even look up from the television, just waves at me distractedly.

I pause for a moment to appreciate it. I hope we still have this when we get back to Watford, when real life comes crashing in and the Mage exacts his revenge.

I think we will.

We haven’t talked about the night of too many pints, but something shifted. At least, I think so. When I woke up, we were tangled together on top of my blankets. I was terrified to move, to ruin it. But then Snow woke up, turned to me, opened his eyes, and then groaned, loudly and excessively. 

I thought he would have shot off the bed when he saw me so close, my arm still slung over him, but instead he just grabbed a pillow and pulled it over his head. 

“Snow,” I started to say, but he shook his head. 

“Go the fuck back to sleep or leave if you’re going to be loud,” he groaned. And that was it. 

And now things are just…easier. 

We play football, and he’ll tackle me, which he never would have dared before. He sleeps on my couch or in my bed almost every night, because he falls asleep watching television. When he’s in the bed, we purposely keep a distance. There’s been no repeat of entwined limbs and morning breath, as much as I wish.

Some nights he’ll pass out on his stomach, his arm hanging off the side, and it’s too much. I’ll roll him off the bed and delegate him to the couch because I just  _know_  that if he’s there I’ll find myself pulled to him like a magnet.

And his magic. Crowley, his magic.

He’s opened it up to me two more times since, and it feels just like it did that night, even when I’m sober. We’ve agreed to experiment with it more when we’re back at Watford, but we both know what this means: this could finally give him the focus and control to take on the Humdrum.

But first we have to survive this party.

I’m distracted all through my tennis game. I’ve met up with Niall, and he ridiculed me for my sloppy performance before asking me what I’m wearing to my father’s party tonight. Honestly, I’ve been so focused on finding a suit to lend Snow that I’ve barely thought about my outfit. Which is incredibly out of character for me.

I just hope tonight goes well. I repeat it to myself like a mantra as I shower and change and prepare to head back home. I just need tonight to go well.

 

**SIMON**

I wait approximately an hour before I start to panic.

“Have you talked to Baz?” I ask Daphne on my way to the kitchen. 

“Hm? Oh, no. He’s at the club. I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” she says. She’s trying to get one of the twins (I still can’t get the name right) to eat, so I don’t press it, and instead offer to help. 

The signs of the evening’s party are everywhere, and when I finish helping Daphne, she sends me off to ensure Mordelia isn’t lighting streamers on fire. She was, but it was only one, so I consider that a win. When I’ve successfully put out the fire and sent Mordelia up to get dressed, Baz is an hour and a half later than he said he’d be.

I wait ten more minutes and then I text him and ask if he’s hungry. I know he won’t be, and it’s a lame thing to ask, but I’m not sure what else to say and I can’t just text “Hey, you’re later than you usually are, is everything alright?” 

Can I text that?

I’ve already sent the food text, so no. I’ll wait.

I distract myself for another half hour by helping the catering staff carry in boxes before I text again.

_**SS:**  Oi, where r u?_

Still no answer. I get in the shower and tell myself that I’m being irrational. He met up with Niall; they probably just got caught up talking, or had to go do something before the party. Maybe his phone is dead.

When I get out of the shower, I’ve worked myself up to a proper panic. Enough of a panic that I brave the most terrifying room in the house: Fiona’s.

She tears open the door after the third knock, her face full of fiery annoyance. 

“Simon, I’m in the middle of mascara. You’ve better a good reason why you just fucked up my makeup,” she hisses. I swallow uncertainly and shove my hands in my pockets. Suddenly I feel extremely self conscious. 

“Have you, uh, have you heard from Baz? He was supposed to be back almost three hours ago.”

Fiona raises an eyebrow. I hate that everyone in this family can do that. 

“No, I haven’t. Have you texted him?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. I feel like a clingy girlfriend. 

“He probably saw himself in a mirror and got distracted. He’ll show up, Chosen One. He never misses a chance to wear a suit,” she says dismissively. “Speaking of, why aren’t you dressed?” 

I’d rather fight the Humdrum than admit to Fiona that I was kind of counting on Baz to help me with the suit thing, so instead I just huff and stomp off.

“Come see me about the tie if he’s not back when you’re done,” she shouts at my back before she slams her door.

I haven’t looked at the suit that Baz put in my room yesterday, but I pull it out now, just to have something to focus on. It’s blue, which strikes me as a bit odd because I honestly didn’t know suits came in any colour other than black. But Baz was insistent that this would fit me best, so I guess I’ll just have to trust him. I get dressed quickly (I can do my own tie, I’m not completely useless) and look in the mirror. My hair is a wreck (Baz can fix it later) but I’ve got to hand it to him. I look good. Almost as fit as he does in these kinds of things.

I run my hands down my thighs several times before I push myself up from the bed and across the hall. I knock, but there’s no answer, so I just let myself in. I pray he’s not getting out of the shower or something.

But the room is empty. 

I check my phone again, and still no messages. I text him again.

_**SS:**  where are you? cutting it pretty close_

_**SS:**  if you leave me alone I’ll feed you to the merwolves_

The sound of music and laughter downstairs signals that the party is starting, so I leave Baz’s room and head, unwillingly, toward the sound. Maybe he’s there already.

I weave through the rooms, ignoring the looks from the few guests who have already arrived, and do a sweep of the ground floor. No Baz.

I check the back garden, then the library, then head back to clear the main areas again when I see Dev.

He’s standing next to Fiona and looking extremely uncomfortable, and Fiona is gesturing wildly and standing far, far too close to him. 

“Hey,” I say, hurrying over to them. Dev looks extremely alarmed to see me, but Fiona just pats my head.

“Did Basil seriously let you come down with your hair looking like that?”

“No,” I say, blushing a bit. “I still haven’t seen him. Have you?”

Fiona narrows her eyes and shakes her head, then smacks Dev on the arm.

“You?” 

Dev winces, but shakes his head as well. He’s glaring down at me, like he hasn’t fully figured out why I’m here. I guess that answers the question of whether Baz has told his friends about us. I mean, me. Me being here.

“Baz was supposed to meet Niall for tennis, but he hasn’t gotten back yet,” I explain. I can’t help but feel embarrassed. It’s been almost four hours, and Baz should definitely be here, but the fact that I’m apparently the only one concerned makes me feel a bit awkward.

But Dev looks alarmed too, thank Magic, because his eyes have gone wide.

“Niall is just over there, with his dad. He said he destroyed Baz at tennis and saw him leave.”

Fiona and I’s eyes meet over Dev’s head, and we both head toward Niall.  
Niall, wise man, seems just as scared of Fiona as Dev was, but he repeats his story for us. 

“Should we—” I start, but Fiona shakes her head. 

“Let’s give it a bit before we involve Malcom,” she says before she stalks off, her far too tight black dress swaying behind her.

I’m left with Niall and Dev. And neither of them look happy to see me.

“So, I don’t know if Baz told you,” I start, and Dev chokes.

“Oh fuck me, don’t tell me you’re the bloke he’s been sexting all summer.”

“ _What_?” Niall and I say at the same time. Dev has the decency to look a little embarrassed, but he doesn’t back down.

“Yeah. He’s been texting someone all summer and when I asked what it was, he said sexts. I figured he had a new bloke, and here you are, so…”

I just stare at him, my mouth hanging open a bit.

“Right, yeah, and you believed him?” I ask. Dev looks properly embarrassed now. “When he was watching  _Notting Hill_ , he said he was watching porn. He was being a dickhead. We weren’t….doing that.”

“So then why are you here?”

It’s a fair question, but not one easily explained. So I shrug. I put my hands in my pockets and attempt to channel my best Baz expression.

“We’re friends. I’ve been staying here for the last few weeks,” I say. Then I hit my chin out in a challenge. “I’ve agreed to not fight Baz and the rest of your lot, and in exchange he and Mr. Grimm are going to help me take on the Humdrum.”

Niall and Dev look at each other, then back to me.

“Why would they do that?” Niall asks. Now it’s my turn to stare.

“Why wouldn’t they?” I ask, confused. “The Humdrum killed Baz’s mum.”

Dev and Niall shift uncomfortably, and I realise that they’ve never thought of it like that. Clearly Baz doesn’t talk about this with them. Which is weird, considering he talks about it with me all the time.

“Anyway,” I say. “Baz isn’t back yet, and it’s weird of him to be late. You sure you didn’t see anything?”

Niall assures me that no, he didn’t, and even though I keep pressing him, the story hasn’t changed.

Finally I abandon them — they’re useless — and go back to stalking the party.

Every time I see dark hair or a tall bloke I do a double take. I text him three more times, and I call him, but it goes straight to mail.

Something is wrong. Something is really wrong.

Over the crowd I see Mr. Grimm’s tight, pinched expression and we lock eyes. I jerk my head toward his study door and he shakes his head, then gestures for me to come over to him. I push through the crowd, aware that I’m starting to smoke a bit, and mutter apologies as I go. 

Mr. Grimm is standing with a group of men I vaguely recognise from a Coven meeting, and I shake their hands dutifully, but don’t pay attention to their names. They say something to me and I just nod, not hearing them at all.

Beside me, Mr. Grimm is fidgeting with his sleeve a bit, which I can tell means he’s getting annoyed and anxious. I know because Baz does the same thing.

“Mr. Grimm, can I talk to you?” I say, cutting over the conversation bluntly. He stiffens, then nods. 

“Excuse us,” he says to the men, then guides me through the crowd to his office. I see Fiona break away from someone she was talking to and follow us.

When the study door closes, the sound of the party is entirely muffled, and its suddenly too quiet.

“Baz is missing,” I say immediately. It’s been too long, way too long, and I can tell something is wrong. My magic can tell. Mr. Grimm shifts.

“I’m sure everything is fine, I’m sure Basilton has an explanation,” he says gruffly. I just stare.

“He wouldn’t miss your party. He would call. He doesn’t just disappear,” I say. I need to take a breath. I can feel myself getting too worked up. 

From the doorway, Fiona sighs.

“Listen, Chosen One,” she says. She still calls me that, but I don’t mind. It’s as close to an endearment as I think she can get. “Baz sometimes ghosts. He’s a dramatic bloke. He’ll show up.”

I turn to stare at her. What’s wrong with these people?

“He’s not being dramatic,” I say. “He’s missing.” And he would never just leave me here to fend for myself.

“Why do you say that?” Mr. Grimm says sharply. “What do you know?”

“What?” I ask, stunned. “I don’t know anything, I can just…I can tell. Something’s wrong. We should be looking for him.”

“If he’s not back by the end of the party, I can look for him,” Fiona offers up, unhelpfully.

“After the party?” I shout. I can’t help it. This is mental. This party doesn’t matter. Baz is missing. “What happened to putting your family first?” I hiss at Mr. Grimm.

His eyes go sharp, just like his son’s, and I can tell he’s about to strike when the door opens and Daphne slips in, her mobile clutched to her chest. Her eyes are wide.

“Malcolm, that was the club,” she breathes. “The Jag is still there, and they found Basil’s bag in the parking lot.”

A palpable crack of electricity goes through the room, and all eyes turn to me as I realise that I caused it.

“See?” I say. “Something’s wrong. We have to look for him.”

I feel a vibrating echo through me, and I try to take a breath. Not now. Not here. But my leg is vibrating and it won’t stop, and finally I look down and see that it’s not my magic, it’s my mobile.

I pull it out and there — yes, finally — on the screen, calling.

It’s Baz.

“Where are you?” I demand, disregarding the stares of Baz’s family. I’m so fucking relieved. I’m going to kill him, once I find out where he is.

But it’s not Baz on the other end.

“We have the boy,” comes a dry, rough, wheezing voice. I pull the mobile from my ear and put it on speakerphone.

“What?” I shout. The Grimm Pitches come closer as the voice speaks again. It wheezes, like the effort of producing words is too painful.

“We have. The boy. We will call again. With demands.”

Then the phone cuts off. 

Mr. Grimm is on me before I have time to blink.

“What do you know? Why did they call you?” he hisses, grabbing at my collar. I throw my hands up in the air to defend myself and try to force my magic down.

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything! They probably just called the last number to call him.”

“Are you in on this?” he asks again, shaking me. I stop struggling. My magic is rising.

“Am I— What? I’ve been the one trying to convince you lot that something is wrong!”

“He’s right, Malcolm,” Fiona says sharply from the corner. “He’s been annoying me about this all day.”

“We’ve got to do something,” I say. Mr. Grimm releases me and steps away. He turns his back to me.

“We will take care of this. Fiona, take Simon back to school tonight. Come back here tomorrow, and we’ll start working.”

“Take me to school?” I bluster. “No, I’m not going back to school while Baz is missing. School? Crowley, that’s the least important thing right now. We should start looking now.”

“Thank you for your concern, Simon, but this is a family matter. I’ll keep you informed of what we decide.”

There’s no holding it back. My magic is rising to the surface now.

“Decide?” I shout. In the back of my mind I notice the sound from the party has died down. They can all probably hear me, or at least feel me. “There’s nothing to decide. Baz is in  _danger_. We should go now.”

“He’s a Pitch,” Fiona says darkly. “He’ll be fine.”

I round on her. My hands are starting to shimmer, and I see her eyes go wider. She’s never seen me go off before. But I can’t. I can’t go off. I’d take the whole house down.

“He’s a  _boy_ ,” I snarl. “You can’t just leave him wherever he is. Aleister fucking Crowley, you people. Now I see where he gets it. You’re so fucking concerned about showing emotion you’re going to let him rot wherever he is?”

“Simon,” Mr. Grimm says, but I cut him off. My brain has switched off and I’m seeing black. 

“You said you were ruthlessly protective. Well be fucking ruthless! I’m here to help.  _Use me_. I’m not going back to school.”

Mr. Grimm snaps, quick as lightening, and he’s so close that I think he’s going to grab me again.

“I can’t keep you out of school, Simon! You can’t stay here! Don’t you get that? The Mage is probably behind this. I took his son, so he took mine. I can’t take you out of school now, because he has Basilton.”

My magic cools, for a moment, as I stare at him.

“I’m not his son,” I say quietly. Dangerously. “And you don’t know he did this.”

“I do,” Mr. Grimm says. His voice is steely. Fuck, he sounds like Baz. “Trust me, I do. You can help us find him. But that starts by going back to school.”

I look around the room in horror.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t just go off and fix this. I can’t force them to agree with me. And what’s worse, I kind of agree with them. But how the fuck are they all so calm? Baz is missing. Baz could be hurt. And they won’t let me look for him.

 

**BAZ**

There’s a ten man mariachi band pulsing through my head. This hurts worse than the night of too many pints. And I can barely breathe. 

I’m enclosed in some kind of box, and it won’t give. My knuckles and fingernails are bloody from clawing at it, and my voice has gone hoarse from screaming. There’s an awful dead shooting feeling in my leg that wakes up and vibrates every few minutes, sending a fresh round of pain through me.

And it’s dark. It’s so dark that not even my eyes can see. I think of calling a flame, but there’s so little room in here that I would set myself on fire.

I’m trying not to panic. I’m a Pitch. We don’t panic. We stay cool. We find a way.

I don’t know if I can find a way.

It’s so dark. And I’m in so much pain.

But I won’t let myself cry. I settle my breathing. I calm my pulse. I don’t know who has me, or where I am, or why. But I know one thing, absolutely, with complete certainly.

Simon fucking Snow, that beautiful, stubborn, courageous fuck, is going to find me.


	10. I find you or you find me

**SIMON**

“That’s an interesting back to school outfit.”

I scowl at Fiona as I throw my bags into the boot of her car (one full of clothes, one with the leprechaun gold, and one with some of Baz’s things).( He’ll be humiliated to have been kidnapped in his tennis whites.)

“We’re not going back to school,” I growl, sliding into the front seat. Fiona gives me a condescending sneer, stubs out her fag and gets in. She puts the car in drive and we slide out on the pebbled drive of Pitch Manor, and then we’re speeding down the lane. Fiona drives like a madman, and I’m glad I’m not in the backseat because it always makes me feel a bit sick.

“Are we going moshing?” she asks. I roll my eyes. I’m wearing the jacket she gave me, along with the boots, and I know I look like a thug. But I might have to kill some things tonight, and I wanted to be prepared. I tell her so.

“I thought your whole thing was that you don’t want to kill anyone,” she says.

“I don’t,” I say truthfully. “But they have Baz.”

Fiona is silent for a long moment, and I can tell she’s thinking. The promise of bloodshed has weakened her.

“Come on, Fiona,” I growl. “You’re not seriously going to sit here and do nothing. We can find him.”

“There’s no ‘we’, boyo. I agree with Malcolm. You need to go back to school. I’ll look. I’ll keep you informed, don’t worry.”

She digs into her purse (her eyes aren’t even on the road) and tosses me my mobile. She took it, back at the manor, to see if she could reverse the call.

“The Mage has implemented a no technology rule over the summer. Cells and laptops won’t work. That should be able to break through the wards though.”

“We should try a tracking spell,” I say, taking the phone back. I run my thumb over the screen and try not to think about how many unanswered texts I sent today. 

Fiona just cackles. There’s no warmth there, though. Her eyes are tight, and I can tell she’s worried.

“Those spells require more power than I have and more skill than you’ve got,” she answers. I turn the mobile over in my hand a few times, then gesture toward a pull off that’s coming up.

“Pull over. I’ve an idea.”

Fiona, amazingly, does what I say. She cuts the engine in the pull off, and we sit in the dark car, staring at each other. It’s madness, to trust her with this secret, but I’m desperate. We’re desperate. And weirdly, in this one situation, I trust her.

“Give me your hand,” I say. 

“No.”

I growl.

“Look. Baz and I do…this thing. I can’t explain it. Just give me your hand.”

She raises her eyebrows sceptically, but holds out her hand for me. She’s got creepy long fingers, just like Baz. I place my hand on her forearm (it feels weird to hold her hand) and then I give a small _push_.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she screams, pulling her arm back and clutching it close. “Jesus fuck what the fuck was that Simon? You could have fucking warned me!”

I stare at her arm. There’s blistering already, the skin pulled together and angry and pinched looking.

“I don’t understand. It doesn’t hurt Baz. He says it feels good.”

Fiona stops cursing and stares at me.

“You two do this a lot?”

I flush. 

“Enough,” I mutter.

“What exactly did you do?”

I clear my throat awkwardly.

“I…I tried to give you my magic. I can give it to him. Or just…open up and let him take it.”

Fiona’s eyes are narrowed into snake slits.

“Can he do it with you?” I shake my head. “Have you ever done it with anyone else?”

I shake my head again.

“No, just you. I figured it would work, since it does with him…”

Fiona curses and reaches for the glove box, then pulls out another fag. She lights it with her hand, without even pulling her wand, and rolls down the window to blow the smoke out.

“This is good,” she says. She’s talking to herself more than me. “You use him like a wand.”

“I… What? No. No I don’t.”

Fiona takes another drag and exhales.

“I might be able to use that. We might be able to do something with that. Now come on, let’s get you back to school.”

“I’m not going back till I find him,” I say. How many times do I have to say this? Fiona flicks the fag out of the window, then reaches for her wand.

“Sorry boyo, but im not taking a chance.  _ **Tell me what you want what you really really want!** ”_

I feel the truth pulled from my chest before I can stop it.

“I want to find Baz! I want to make sure he’s okay! I want keep him where I can see him and I want to make sure he doesn’t go missing again!”

I blush at my outburst; I can’t help it, even if it was magically forced. Fiona is eyeing me for a long moment, then she nods and turns the engine over again.

“Alright then. Trust me, Chosen One, we’ll get him back. But we need to get you to school. Don’t argue. It’s just step one in our plan.” 

“I don’t really do plans,” I admit.

“You’re working with the Pitches now; we plan.”

“You mean plot?”

“Plans, plots, same thing.”

 

**BAZ**

It feels like a month, but I think it’s only been a day or so. 

But Simon’s coming. I know.

 

**SIMON**

It’s been a week since Baz was taken, but it feels like a year.

I don’t sleep. I spend the nights canvassing the Wavering Wood (even though I know he won’t be there) and I sleep through half my classes. I keep waking up and thinking that I’m hearing Baz come into the room, or see him standing by the window, but it’s never him.

Every day I send a text to whoever it is that has him. I don’t expect them to answer, but I want them to know that I’m coming for him.

Eventually.

Penny, Dev, Niall, Agatha and I have been holed up in the library, pouring over tracking spells. Agatha still seems like she doesn’t want to be here, and Niall is still extremely suspicious of me, but Dev and Penny have thrown themselves into the search. 

“What’s the leading theory?” Niall asked the first day we met. He glared at me the whole time.

“Goblins,” Penny said from across the table. “Whoever kills Simon gets to be king.”

“Why take Baz then?” Agatha asked.

“Because they know I’d come for him,” I said, tilting my head to look at Agatha. Isn’t that obvious? The table went quiet, and then Niall cleared his throat.

“Right, but…why? And how would the goblins know that? You two are enemies. Everyone knows it.”

I blinked. I keep forgetting that outside the strange bubble of this summer, a world exists in which Baz and I are supposed to kill each other. Where we’re supposed to hate each other. It seems impossible that everyone still thinks this.

“Maybe not goblins then,” Penny said quickly. And we moved on.

We tried tracking spell after tracking spell, meeting between classes to search hunting spells or ways to find a lost object or speak to someone across a distance. Nothing works.

Every morning I text Fiona for updates, only to hear that there’s been no progress. Every day that I wake up in the empty room seems like the day I‘m going to go off and take all of Mummers House with me, until the day I wake up to find the Mage standing in my doorway.

I’ve been dreading this since I got back. I was expecting him to call me to his office and yell. Or to freeze me out. I didn’t expect him here.

“Simon,” he says sharply. I sit up, pushing back the books I fell asleep reading. I’m in Baz’s bed. I didn’t mean to sleep here, I was just sitting here to focus, trying to channel some of his intelligence from the familiar smell of his soap, when I fell asleep.

“Sir.”

“Did you have a nice summer?” he asks. He knows. He’s dancing around this, trying to get me to confess or explain. I want to ask him where he was, why he didn’t show up on my birthday, but that feels childish and petulant and unimportant in the larger scheme of things. And I don’t want to let on how much it had upset me.

“Yeah,” I say instead.

“I’ve heard you’ve become friends with Basilton,” he says tightly. He’s looking out my window instead of looking at me.

“I have,” I say. He hums lightly and turns. “It’s what you wanted,” I add. “You always said the Crucible cast us together. Like brothers.”

The Mage doesn’t look happy to be reminded.

“Did you enjoy your visit with the Pitches?” 

I nod. 

“I did. They’re actually great.”

He hums again.

“Do you know where Basilton is?”

I meet his eyes. They’re blue, like mine. I never usually have the nerve to make eye contact with him though.

“Do you?” I ask.

I don’t know if I believe Mr. Grimm’s theory about the Mage taking Baz. But I’m not sure I disbelieve it. I’m not sure what I believe.

“I think it’s time for you to leave Watford,” he says. “I don’t think it’s safe here any longer. You’ve leaned all you can. I’ve made arrangements to move you, and we can be there by this afternoon if we go now.”

“Leave?” I ask. I feel my magic rising. “No.” 

“Simon,” he starts, but I shake my head. I’m smoking, I’m boiling, I’m trying to swallow the panic.

“I’m not leaving until I find Baz.”

“I wasn’t aware he was missing,” he says. “The Coven weren’t informed.”

He’s lying. I know he’s lying. He’s taking this far too calmly. All of this has been far too calm.

“I’m not going anywhere until I find him,” I say again. I let my magic come up, and it washes over me. The Mage takes a step back.

“Because you’re friends with Basilton Pitch now.” It’s not a question, but I nod.

“Yeah I am,” I say. “I’m sorry, sir. But I’m not going anywhere until I find him.”

He turns away from me and nods.

“Very well.” 

And then he leaves. I’m still smoking, taking up the whole room with my magic, and I collapse back onto the bed and try to breath. It will be okay. I’ll get through this. I’ll find Baz.

 

**BAZ**

They aren’t feeding me.

Normal food, that is.

They’ve given me blood four times. So I’ve either been here four days or maybe eight days or maybe twelve days. I think it’s four. 

I attacked when they opened the lid of whatever I’m in to throw in the blood. I led, fangs first, and sank myself into the nearest flesh, only to taste the salty, brackish texture of sour blood. They slammed the lid back on me, and I vomited all over myself from the taste.

Numpties, then. I was kidnapped by fucking numpties.

I close my eyes and steady myself. Simon is coming. Simon is alive and looking for me. Simon is coming.

 

**SIMON**

It’s been over two weeks, and every day feels like hell.

Whoever has him has called me two more times, once demanding money and once demanding wands. Mr. Grimm wanted to pay, but Fiona said no.

“Pitches don’t pay ransoms.”

That’s the most stupid fucking thing I’ve ever heard, and I told them so.

I left Watford Friday morning and spent all weekend in London with Fiona, canvassing the city and trying spell after spell after spell. But nothing worked.

“Where the fuck is he?” I shout after yet another abandoned warehouse is empty. I swing my sword at a pile of rubbish and kick a box viciously. “I’m the Chosen One, I’m the Greatest Mage, and I can’t even find one fucking person.”

Fiona just sucks down another fag in silence and watches as I collapse to the ground.

“What if he’s hurt? Are they feeding him? Does whoever has him know he needs blood and food?” I tuck my knees up to my chin and sigh.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. I hate this. I hate every part of this: the intense fear, the anger, and worst, the nonstop wonder of where he is and if he’s okay. Fiona sits with me in silence for a bit. She’s used to these outbursts. This is her way of comforting me. I kind of like it. It’s what Baz would do.

She gives me a few moments of silence then she hauls me up and drags me back into the car.

“Read these,” she says, pulling a few books out of her massive purse. I squint through the grey hazy light of the Sunday afternoon. They look old and dusty and likely worthless.

“ _The Magickal Effects of The Great Vowel Shift of The Sixteenth Century,_ ” I read, opening the first book. “Too bad I have no idea what that means.”

“There’s loads of old, powerful spells in there that are more charged by emotion than precision,” Fiona responds. She’s reclined her seat back and has her eyes closed. “Just see if there’s anything we can use, yeah?”

I flip through the book even though I’m incredibly dubious. Spells like these are way out of my capability, and half of them are Shakespeare references.

“Wait,” I say suddenly, stopping on a page. “Baz used this one.” I snort. “Figures he would know one of these.” 

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Fiona says. I peer closer to the book and read the  _ **on love’s light wings**_  spell.

“A notoriously difficult spell which requires in-depth understanding of the source material, and for the caster to feel consuming romantic love. For most reliable casting, use in the presence of the object of your affections,” I read. 

Fiona snorts from her seat. “What are you talking about?” she asks.

I stare down at the page. It’s swimming in front of me. 

I can’t focus. I can’t think.

“That’s the spell Baz used to get us to his window.  ** _On love’s light wings_**.”

The car is silent except for the sound of light rain hitting the windshield, and Fiona slowly sits up.

“Basil cast that? He actually managed to cast that?” I turn to stare at her, my eyes wide, and nod.

“He used my magic to do it,” I whisper. 

“Son of a bitch,” she whispers back. Then she slaps the steering wheel so loud the horn honks. “Son of a bitch!” she shouts. She digs in her bag and pulls out a pen, then reaches over and tears a page out of the two hundred year old book she had just handed me. She scrawls something on it, then hands it back.

“Have you ever heard or read this poem?” she asks. I squint down at it and nod. It was in a movie Baz and I watched.

“I…” my mouth feels dry. “I don’t know if this will work,” I whisper. I can’t meet her eyes. 

“Try it,” she hisses. “Try it, Chosen One, or I swear to Chompsky I’ll pluck out your eyes and set them on fire.”

I nod, and try to calm my shaking hands. I let my magic rise, up and up until it wraps around me, and I open the door like I would to Baz.

“ ** _He was my North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest._** ”

I can feel the magic working, pulling, pushing out of me, and I look up. The compass that Fiona has hanging from her rear mirror is going crazy, spinning and spinning, the arrow circling back to east, insistently. 

I turn my head, my mouth open, and look at Fiona.

“Drive,” I whisper. “I swear to fucking God, Fiona, drive.”

 

**BAZ**

It’s so dark. 

I can’t tell days. I can’t count, or tell when I’m asleep or when I’m awake. All I feel is hunger and pain and the intense desire to just close my eyes and drift. 

Simon is out there. Simon is alive.

But I don’t know if he’s coming to find me.


	11. And you love me till my heart stops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's been reading and commenting. your comments have been so, so incredible. this journey is very nearly finished, and I just want to say that I love you all for indulging this story born out of my love of the talking heads & Hugh grant movies. bless you all.

**BAZ**

Something is happening. 

I can hear muffled shouts from outside of my coffin (I’m in a coffin. Finally riddled that one out.) 

There’s a deafening roar and then the earth shakes around me. I know that sound. I know that sounds far too well.

I try to keep my breathing even. If it’s just the numpties having a row, I don’t want to get my hopes up. I don’t want to imagine that the dark is about to lift and I’m going to see bronze hair and blue eyes smiling down on me.

I’ve seen him too many times. And he’s never been real.

Something hits the coffin and it shifts. I can feel the vibration and hear the sound of something connecting with it again. Again.

Each vibration sends a wave of pain through me as it jostles my leg and my head. Please just make it stop.

The blows keep coming, one after another and I hear shouting now, and arguing. Did the numpties lose the key or something? 

Then—

A rush of cool air hits my face and I gasp, pulling my hands up to cover my eyes as my senses are flooded with light.

It can’t be the numpties. They never open my coffin in the daytime.

Someone is standing above me and I hear an intake of breath and then I feel someone taking my hands and—

“Baz,” the person breathes.

I pull my hand from my face. 

It’s Simon. It’s Simon fucking Snow.

Merlin, I pray he’s real. Let him be real.

Suddenly Simon is shoved out of the way and I feel the sting of magic as a spell hits me.

“ ** _Get well soon! Early to bed, early to rise!_** ”

It’s Fiona, throwing spell after spell at me, her face screwed into tight concentration. She and Snow look a bit singed. Her hair is missed and there’s soot on her face, and Snow’s hair is sticking in every direction. The corner of his awful jacket is still smoking, and he’s holding that ridiculous sword.

He’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.

Snow is crouching on the ground next to the coffin, and he reaches a hand over to pull me out. It takes too long for my limbs to realise that I want them to move, and they aren’t complying, so he and Fiona end up each taking a hand and pulling me out. 

My legs are weak, but I can mostly stand without them shaking. 

“Where are we?” I ask. My voice is raw.

“London,” Fiona says. She fires off another spell at me, and then casts Clean as a whistle on my stained clothes. “You were taken by numpties.”

I nod, and look around. We appear to be under a bridge of some sort, and I see several smoking piles of rubbish and a large crater several metres away. The classic signs of a Simon Snow nuclear reaction.

“And where are the numpties?” I ask. Fiona grins.

“The Chosen One dissolved them in one go,” she responds. I look to Snow. Perfect, beautiful, nuclear fucking Simon Snow. He’s breathing heavily and just staring at me, and even in my disassociated state I can feel his magic rolling off of him. Why isn’t he saying anything?

“Numpties. Really Basil?  _Numpties_? Seriously, boyo, I would have expected more,” Fiona is saying. 

“Thank you,” I croak. I can’t look away from Snow. Why isn’t he speaking?

“Goblins I could understand, but numpties?”

“Fiona,” Snow says finally. His voice is lower than usual, and it sounds almost as hoarse as mine. “Shut up.”

“Oi, I’m not the one here who got kidnapped by rocks or blew up a bridge with my emotions,” she snaps.

“Fiona,” he growls again. “Shut up and turn around.”

“No,” she snaps. Snow’s eyes flick away from mine for a millisecond to glare at her in annoyance, and then they’re back. His unspectacular, perfect blue eyes. 

“Fine,” he says. “I warned you.”

And then he grabs me.

His hands are clenched in my shirt and he drags me to him and collides his face with mine, kissing me like my life depends on it, like his life depends on it. I can’t even focus on what’s happening because as soon as our lips meet he opens himself up and his magic comes crashing into me, setting off every nerve in my body and expanding within me until I feel like I might burst. I’m shaking.

Everything is shaking.

I can’t even kiss him back or react to what is happening.

I thought I was going to die. I thought I was half dead. But Simon Snow is kissing me and flooding my body with  _him_  and I’ve never felt so alive.

When he breaks away from me it feels like we’ve been joined for a century. He’s breathing hard, and I’m not even breathing, I’m completely immobilised. His hands are cupping my face, spreading warmth through my body, and my own arms hang limp at my sides.

“Disgusting,” Fiona says. “Come on, lets get you home.”

Snow drops his hands, turns bright red, and steps away from me. I can’t say anything. I just stare.

We limp toward the car, Snow and Fiona supporting me. He’s not looking at me, just frowning at the ground, and when we get to the car he lets go and I immediately miss his warmth.

He digs in the boot for a moment and then returns with a carton of blood and a bag. 

“I didn’t know if they were feeding you, so I brought this,” he says. He’s still looking at the ground. Why won’t he look at me? I need to see his eyes. “And I thought you might be cold, so…” he shoves the bag at me and then turns to talk to Fiona in hushed tones.

He brought me blood. We’ve never directly talked about the vampire thing, and yet…he brought me blood.

And a jumper and trousers.

I won’t fucking cry. I won’t. 

I pull the jumper over my head with difficulty. My limbs feel completely numb.

They’ve both got their backs to me, so I quickly pull on the trousers as well. I’ve spent seven years trying not to change in front of Snow, and suddenly I just…don’t care. Nothing matters.

Except he kissed me. That matters. That matters a lot.

Snow gets in the back of Fiona’s car and I go to get in the front, but she throws her hand in front of the door.

“Front seat is for people who haven’t been kidnapped by fucking numpties. Get in the back.”

Snow is sitting there, still smoking, staring out the window, and I gingerly crawl inside and sit next to him.

“Thanks for the blood,” I say quietly. “They, uh. They gave me some. No regular food though.”

He looks at me — finally, for only a second — and my beaten body feels like it’s going to sing. But then he looks away.

“Fiona, let’s hit Maccers,” he says. 

This is why he’s the Chosen One. He makes incredible decisions like this.

We’re all silent on the way to McDonalds, and I can feel Snow’s presence next to me in the backseat like a palpable energy. 

“How did you find me?” I ask when Fiona passes the food back. Snow takes it and hands me a burger.

“Eat it slowly,” he warns. Then looks away. I need him to look at me. 

I ignore his advice and inhale the burger. I don’t bother covering my mouth while I eat. He brought me blood.

“Ask Snow,” Fiona says, throwing the car back into drive and peeling out of the lot. I look at him and he shrugs. Is he blushing?

“Fiona found a tracking spell,” he says. Then digs into his burger with far less than his usual enthusiasm. 

They used a tracking spell? They must have worked together—Fiona doesn’t have the power, and Snow doesn’t have the control. He must have told her about his magic. I don’t know if it’s the burger or the thought of Simon opening himself to Fiona, but I feel sick.

“Took you long enough,” I mutter darkly.

“Sorry, I didn’t think to check under bridges,” Fiona snaps back. “Next time you get taken by cold piles of rock, I’ll know where to look.”

“Crowley,” Snow snaps. He shouting, and he hits the back of the seat in front of him. “Can’t you two just acknowledge that you’re happy to see each other? What the fuck is wrong with this family?”

I notice he says “this” family and not “your” family. I try to smile, but the muscles in my face don’t seem to be working.

“It’s the Pitch way,” I mutter. I lean my head against the window and try to swallow my nausea.

“There’ll be plenty of tears when we get to the Grimms, don’t worry,” Fiona adds. “Hey, Simon, will you call Malcolm? Let him know we’re on the way.”  
Snow just grunts and pulls out his mobile, and dials my father.

Part of me thinks I’m still in the coffin. There’s no possible way that this can be real, that Simon Snow found me, kissed me, brought me blood and warmth, and is now calling my father. This isn’t the way the world works. I don’t get this.

I don’t get to have this.

Maybe I imagined the kiss.

But then I feel the smallest hint of warmth. I don’t look; I won’t look. But I know what it is. Simon has placed his hand gently on top of mine on the seat between us.

I swallow down another wave of nausea and fall asleep to the sound of Simon’s voice.

 

**SIMON**

They were right. There’s loads of crying when we get home.

Daphne sniffled over him for half an hour, and Mordelia joined in too. He wanted to shower, but they shoved him straight into bed and Daphne and Fiona fired off more healing spells while his father and I stood awkwardly to the side, not speaking. 

Daphne hugged me when we brought him in. Mr. Grimm just clapped me on the back stiffly and said “good man.”

It’s all been extremely awkward.

He fell asleep shortly after we got back, and I felt weird just loitering around his room, so I went out to the garden with Fiona for a bit, then accepted Daphne’s invitation to stay the night (because honestly it was pretty late when we got back, and it hadn’t really occurred to me to go back to Watford tonight) and then finally I just said goodnight and went up to my room.

Somehow, despite spending a month here happily, today I feel extremely out of place.

Maybe that’s because I didn’t actually spend much time in this room. The wraiths are still here, having a fucking party like usual. It’s fine though. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep even if they weren’t here.

I just keep coming back to it. I found him. I actually found him, through some weird spell that’s apparently charged off of love, and then I kissed him.

That wasn’t the plan. Not that there was much of a plan to begin with. But I wasn’t planning on kissing him. It hadn’t crossed my mind at all, honestly. But then he was standing there, looking too thin, too pale, too tired. And all I could think was how badly I wanted to fix him, to fill him up with warmth and then I just…kissed him.

It was overwhelming as fuck. I practically jumped him, way too forcefully, and I opened up my magic without even realising it and I flooded him. It was way, way too much. No wonder he didn’t kiss me back. No wonder he didn’t even move. 

I want to do it again. It’s all I can think about. I want to touch him, and kiss him, and keep him exactly where I can see him. I need to step back though. He’s exhausted, he’s just gone through hell, and the last thing he needs is me bursting in and making him deal with my shit.

I don’t even want to deal with my shit. So why would he?

But he loves me. At least, I think he does. I think that’s what the spell he did means. I should probably double check that. Otherwise this is going to be a lot more humiliating than it already is.

Through the dark, I feel my phone vibrate. Shit, that’s probably Penny. I should have told her I wouldn’t be back.

_**BP:**  are you awake?_

Thank Merlin. I don’t think I could go all night without seeing him.

I don’t bother answering, just pull back the covers and creep across the hall. I don’t even knock, I just enter.

He’s sitting cross legged on his bed, looking a bit better than he did earlier. His hair is wet, so I guess he finally got that shower, but he’s still wearing the jumper I brought him. He’s eating something off of a tray. Crowley, he’s a sight for sore eyes.

He looks up and smiles when I come in. It’s a tired smile, but on Baz Pitch, any kind of smile is a miracle. He reaches onto the tray, grabs an extra fork, and holds it out to me. I cross the room quickly and sit down on the bed across from him. I’m fucking starving.

“How are you feeling?” I ask. It seems like a stupid question, but I don’t know what else to say.

“Better,” he responds. There’s silence. He’s got all the lights turned on, which is unusual for him. He looks so tired.

“What tracking spell did Fiona use?” he asks. 

I squint, and squirm a little. How do I explain? I can’t explain myself, honestly. I shove a forkful of pie into my mouth in order to buy time. I’ve got no idea how the spell worked. I knew this question was going to come up at some point — especially after I kissed him — but I don’t know what to say. I know that there’s a lot riding on it, but I just don’t know how to answer. I wish I didn’t have to.

“I did the spell, actually.”

Baz’s eyes pierce through me, and he doesn’t have to speak to accuse me of lying. His face does it for him.

“Seriously,” I say. “She couldn’t get one to work.”

“Did you try to…” he trails off. I watch as he picks at the edge of his sweater. 

I nod.

“I tried. It didn’t work.” I swallow nervously and look up to meet his eyes. “I tried the night you got taken, to give her my magic, but I burned her. It wouldn’t work.”

“You burned her?” I nod. I still feel pretty bad about that.

“Are you sure it doesn’t hurt you? Did it hurt you….earlier?” I ask. I’ve asked him this before, loads of times. But after Fiona, part of me is worried. I wasn’t going to mention the kiss, but I need to know. He shakes his head. 

“No. It always feels good,” he whispers. I see soft colour creep up his cheeks toward his ears. Merlin, he looks beautiful. There’s more silence, and I think about moving that tray and just kissing him when he speaks again. 

“How did you find a tracking spell that worked?” His voice is cold, turned off. He hasn’t spoken to me like this in weeks. I know how he feels about me. At least, I think he does. Why does he always push people away?

“Fiona found it. I… We found that spell you used. The one to get us up to the window, that night. In a book, explaining how to do it. I told her about it and then…she suggested the poem.”

He’s staring at his hands. I think they’re shaking. Crowley. Baz and I, talking about feelings. The two things we’re absolute shit at.

“You cast a poem?” I nod. “Which one?”

“The one that was in the other Hugh Grant movie?” I say. “The one from the, uh, funeral scene.”

“You cast ‘ _Funeral Blues_ ’? What part?” I flush. I don’t want to say it. 

“Does it matter?” I ask. My voice cracks a bit, and he finally looks up. 

“That poem is about intense grief and longing, so, yes, it does matter. I cannot fathom how you turned it into a tracking spell,” he says. He’s smiling. I think he’s smiling.

“I wouldn’t say  _intense_  grief,” I mutter. He moves the tray. 

“What was the line, Simon?”

His hand moves toward mine. 

“I can’t remember,” I lie. I don’t know why I’m lying. All I can think right now is that his hand is coming toward my knee. His wet hair is hanging in his face because he’s moving forward. He’s definitely grinning. It’s that special smile of his, the one that means bad news. All angles and trouble. I shake my head. 

“Tell me,” he says. He’s stopped just in front of my face. I can smell his soap. I can feel his breath on my cheek. 

“No,” I say. I go to close the space between our mouths, but he pulls back. When did he get so cocky? Never mind, it’s Baz. He’s always cocky.

“I’m going to throw you out the fucking window,” he whispers.

“Better out the window than down the stairs. I can fly, remember?” 

He throws his head back and laughs, and my chest squeezes around me. I love seeing him like this. I reach for his hand — I’m going to kiss him, I won’t let him stop me this time — but then he leans forward and kisses me.

It’s nothing like the earlier kiss. I was desperate, longing, trying to make him thoroughly understand how much I had missed and worried about him, and I was too much. 

This kiss is slow. Maddeningly slow. I take his hand, and I can’t help it, I open up my magic again and I feel him reach in an accept it. I move my chin a bit and deepen the kiss and as I do my magic flows out of me and into him. His cocky confidence is gone and his hands are hesitant as they reach up slowly to encircle my back. 

This is so slow. This is so careful. This isn’t us.

“Fuck this,” I growl, and I deepen the kiss. I feel him laugh against my lips and then he pushes back, matching my intensity. We fall back onto the pillows of his bed and I can’t get enough of him. Crowley, why didn’t I do this sooner?

The kiss tapers out as slowly as it began, and then we’re lying there, our faces so close, my hands on his stomach and his on my arms. 

“Thank you for coming for me,” he whispers. “I owe you.”

I shake my head forcefully. 

“No, no, you really don’t. We’re even.” Baz lifts his eyebrow. 

“How are we even remotely even?” 

I shrug. I don’t want to have to tell him this. It’s the kind of cool thing that’s supposed to go unsaid, that he’s just supposed to understand. And also I’m really fucking bad at using words.

“You…” How do I explain this? “You kept me sane this summer. Talking to me, distracting me. And then you came for me and you brought me here. Brought me to your terrifying, fucked up family. So… yeah, you don’t owe me.”

Baz smiles. His cheeks pull up at his eyes, and his hair is in his face. He looks like some kind of pensive Greek god. He licks his lips and then opens his mouth slowly to speak, and I know this eloquent fuck is going to say something deep and impressive and beautiful.

“What was the line you cast?”

I growl and poke him sharply in the stomach. 

“You’re just going to make fun of me,” I say. He nods, still smiling. 

“Yes, absolutely.”

I sigh. He’s never going to let this go. So I tell him. I’m blushing and stuttering my way through it, and his grin just grows wider and wider.

“That’s tragically romantic,” he says. “And not even remotely a spell. Something like that would only work for you, you impossible, perfect nightmare.”

I feel like I should blush, but instead I just growl, and he laughs again.

“It was also extremely clever of Fiona,” he says.

“Why?” I move closer to him. I don’t want to stop touching him, like I’m scared that if I move my hand he’ll disappear again. I tuck my head into the crook of his shoulder and I feel him bring one cool hand up to run through my hair. It sends tingles down my scalp, and Crowley, it feels good when he twirls his fingers through my hair. No one has ever done this for me before. It should be sexy but it just feels relaxing as hell.

“ _Four Weddings and a Funeral_  is one of my favourite movies, and ‘ _Funeral Blues_ ’ is my favourite poem,” he says.

“Crowley, you’re depressing,” I say. He shrugs. He picked that up from me.

“Honestly, I just really fancy Hugh Grant.”

I kiss him again, capturing his bottom lip in mine, and he hums against my mouth. 

“Will you stay in here tonight?” he asks. His voice is quiet, and I can hear the hesitation. “I…I’ve been alone for too long. I don’t want to be left alone.”

I had absolutely no intention of leaving, but I like that he asked. I’m glad that he wants me to be close as badly as I do. I like seeing him like this. Soft, and vulnerable. I haven’t seen him like this since the night of too many pints, when he couldn’t stop laughing. 

I love the sound of his laughter. 

Probably not tonight, but I’m going to make him laugh again.


	12. I'm just an animal looking for a home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is the final part! Thank you so so much for following along and enjoying this story and sticking around for updates! you lot have been absolutely incredible, and I love you to bits.

**BAZ**

Simon and I return to Watford two days later. Together.

The ride there was excruciatingly painful. Fiona still won’t let me sit in the front seat, and Simon was in charge of music.

Getting back to Watford was worse, though.

Father almost didn’t let me go, and I almost agreed with him. He’s positive the Mage was behind my kidnapping, as is Fiona. I don’t know why or how the Mage would hire numpties to kidnap me, but stranger things have happened, I suppose. I expected Simon to have a fit when father brought it up, but he just stayed silent. Which was even more concerning

“The Mage tried to get me to leave,” he told me later that night. We were sitting in the woods outside the house. I’d gone to hunt, and he insisted on following me. (That’s the one bad side effect of us being…whatever we are. He follows me even more than he used to, and I can’t really bring myself to tell him no.) 

“He said I wasn’t safe at Watford, and that he wanted to take me elsewhere to train,” he continued. “I said no.”

Despite leaving care, despite allying himself with me, it still surprises me that Simon was able to say no to the Mage. But he didn’t just say no — he almost went off on him.

I’ve never been prouder.

I haven’t told Simon, but part of me thinks my kidnapping and the Mage’s plan to relocate him are connected. If the Mage did have me abducted, he might have been trying to keep Simon from finding me. Or he might have been trying to keep us both from school.

But why?

Fiona agrees, and says I should tell Simon my theory. But I won’t. I’m not sure I can. Whenever the Mage comes up, his face clouds over and his forehead pinches together and he juts out his chin. It makes me want to drop the subject immediately and kiss the lines from his face.

Sometimes I do.

I take advantage of those kinds of opportunities as much as I can while we’re still home, because I think it will be different when we get back to Watford. I don’t know if we’ll still have our easy silences and soft moments. We still fight; don’t get me wrong. We could never not fight. That animosity and annoyance is what has always fuelled us. It’s our defining characteristic. 

And also I like pushing and prodding and pissing him off until he kisses me. 

Bunce meets us at the gate when we get back to school, her eyes wild as she pulls Simon into a hug.

“The Mage left,” she says. “Said he’d be gone throughout the rest of term. He was not happy to find out you had left.”

She releases Simon and gives me a pat on the arm.

“Welcome back, Basil.”

Apparently while I was stuck in a coffin, Snow appropriated my friends. When we sit down at lunch, Dev, Niall, and Wellbelove are already gathered. Dev and Niall nod at me and don’t acknowledge my two week absence. Good men. Wellbelove looks anxious as a cat. I feel anxious as a cat.

Simon and I didn’t discuss what we would do when we got back to school. Whether we’d still be snogging. Whether we’d let anyone else know about that. I hate public displays of affection, so I assumed we would have more time to deal with that unpleasant conversation.

Not so, as it turns out.

Halfway through lunch, Simon brushes his hand along my arm casually. I tense and look around the table, but only Dev saw. He raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Good man. 

I shift to the side and dislodge Simon’s arm without him noticing.

I’m about to tell him off (quietly) when the door bursts open and a white figure appears in the hall. Simon knocks over his chair as he stands up and pulls his sword.

“What in Merlin’s name is that?” he asks. I’m wondering the same thing, but I don’t jump to my feet with a weapon. Simon isn’t the only one standing — some third year jumps up too, and runs to the figure.

“Simon sit down,” Bunce hisses. “It’s just another Visiting.”

He flushes and sheathes his sword. He’s blushing when he sits down, and I want to kiss his neck and call him an idiot. I don’t. 

“I forgot that was happening,” he mutters darkly.

“There are like five Visits a day, how could you not notice?” Niall asks. I don’t think he’s as on board with this odd new friendship as Dev is. But Dev is also sitting uncommonly close to Agatha. 

Simon just shrugs and glances at me for a millisecond, then goes more red. Crowley, he blustering.

“I was focused on other stuff. Like getting your mate back,” he snaps. “You’re welcome.”

I grin. I can’t help it. I’m a besotted piece of shit.

“How exactly did you manage that, by the way?” Agatha asks. It’s the first thing I’ve heard her say, and I drop my smile immediately. She won’t look at me, for some reason, and a bolt of thunder goes through me. Are she and Snow still dating? Have they spoken at all about what’s going on? The last time I saw her we were in the Wavering Woods and she had just discovered my secret and thrown herself at me. Last night I fell asleep with her boyfriend’s head on my chest.

This is distinctly uncomfortable. I pick at my sleeve. Surely Simon wouldn’t be so inconsiderate as to do…whatever we’ve been doing…without talking to her. Without cutting things off. 

But then again, he is an idiot. 

“Snow and my aunt did a tracking spell,” I say coolly. My tone is so sharp than Simon looks at me in surprise. “They found the numpties, Snow went nuclear, you know the rest.”

Bunce has now found interest in the conversation. She’s been ignoring us and reading.

“A tracking spell? You did a tracking spell, Simon? Which one? How did you get it to work? Those are really hard.”

Simon is tingling magic with anxiety, and I want to drown myself. In him, preferably.

“You can ask my aunt,” I say. “She did the logistics. Now, Visitings. Has anyone come back to avenge a murder yet? I do love those family dramas.”

Simon looks at me with relief, and I feel him lightly press his thigh to mine under the table. I don’t know if he’s relieved he didn’t have to explain that we’re together (are we?) or if he’s just emotionally stunted. 

My distraction worked, because Bunce is off rambling about Visitings and the veil and some dead aunt she has who lost books (?) and I check out of the conversation completely and instead begin running one finger up Snow’s thigh. 

I feel him jolt a little when I first touch him, and so I start rubbing circles with my thumb, inching closer and closer to his inner thigh, working my way higher and higher up his leg. He’s shifting uncomfortably and he starts jiggling his leg and I can see the colour rising in his cheeks. I bite down a grin and keep at it, and then suddenly his knee hits the table and he shifts away from me, crosses his legs, and puts his hands in his lap.

I gave the Chosen One an inappropriately timed erection. 

It takes every inch of control I have to not let out a wolffish laugh and smile until my face hurts. I want to pull him into my arms and kiss the mole under his ear and mock him mercilessly. Instead I settle for a small smirk.

“It started the night you were taken. Dad had a Visiting actually, from uncle Jad. Wanted to apologise,” Dev is saying. I tear my eyes from Simon’s lap. “It was a whole thing. Showed up at your party, actually. After Snow stormed out of there. Your dad freaked out when it happened, thought it was—” Dev stops, clears his throat, and nods. “It was a whole thing.”

I sit up straighter and blink. There was a Visiting at my house? My father didn’t tell me. Admittedly, there was a lot going on, and uncle Jad’s daddy issues have never been of interest to me. But Dev has made me realise something.

“It started the night I was taken?” I ask. I turn to Simon. He’s glaring at me, his bottom lip jutted out and his brows creased. I’m going to have to pay for my little stunt later, but I don’t care. “Snow, when did the Mage come to you?”

He frowns.

“Uh…not long after, I suppose.” He looks uncomfortable. I hate bringing up the Mage around him, but needs must be met.

I nod. It’s a theory — a wild theory, an impossible theory, but it’s all I have.

“Snow,” I say slowly. “I think someone — the Mage, someone else, I don’t know — but there were efforts to remove both of us from Watford just as the Visitings started. It’s a classic tactic. People with secrets kill or kidnap whoever is most likely to get a Visiting, in order to protect a secret. What if someone has a secret, and you and I are likely candidates to hear it?”

“Who would tell me a secret?” he asks. I frown. It’s a good point.

“Did you notice anything? While you were here? Did anyone show up at night or Visit?”

Snow flushes.

“I…I wasn’t in the room much at night. A couple times I thought I saw you, but…I just figured I was sleeping.”

He looks worried and embarrassed and I make a mental note to kiss the shit out of him later. Maybe the Mage’s attempt to remove Simon was just coincidental. Maybe the Visitings have nothing to do with it.

“Maybe not then,” I say. Simon looks relieved that I’ve dropped it. “But keep an eye peeled. And for Chompsky’s sake, don’t attack anyone if they do Visit?”

He doesn’t respond, just makes eye contact and growls at me. I cross my legs and pull my hands to my lap.

**SIMON**

Turns out that dating Baz is a lot like fighting Baz, just with loads more sexual tension thrown in.

At least, I think we’re dating. He hasn’t said anything, but that’s what it feels like to me. 

Then again, he has said anything about it, at all, to anyone. 

We didn’t have any kind of conversation about whether we’d still snog (we are) or whether we’d tell people (we haven’t) but it seems pretty clear that he’s not interested in anyone finding out. If I touch him at all in public he freaks out and stiffens up and moves away. But at the same time he’ll run his cool fucking fingers all over me when no one is looking. 

Once after class I was heading out the door and I saw him striding toward me from Mummers House. He had his hair down and it was fanning behind him as he moved toward me, and he looked fucking perfect, as usual.

“Snow,” he called, his voice cracking across the courtyard like thunder. “I’m going to slaughter you.” 

Everyone around us ran. They’ve seen what happens when Baz and I fight.

I just stood in the courtyard, staring like an idiot, confused as to what I did and angry as hell at him for acting like this. When he reached me he grabbed me and shoved me into an empty classroom.

“What the actual fuck,” I started, but I didn’t get a chance to finish because he pushed me against the wall and started kissing me. I didn’t know what was happening, so I dropped my bag and kissed him back.

“I needed that,” he said when we finally broke away. He smiled that awful smile that only I ever get to see, and pressed his forehead to mine. “Practice was awful.”

“So you threatened to kill me?”

He blinked.

“What? No,” he sneered. “That was just to get people to leave.”

I ran a finger along his stomach and shook my head. I felt a little heady from the kiss, and the smell of his cedar soap was still filling my senses.

“Your family was right, you are dramatic.” 

He just chuffed and kissed my neck again.

I’m learning these small things about him: how he uses threats of violence to cover when he’s being vulnerable. How he’ll never tell me his day was rough, but sometimes he’ll drift over to my chair and press his face to the top of my hair, or casually sit next to me on my bed and shove his long legs into my lap.

I don’t mind not engaging in public affection. That’s not really me either. Even if we told everyone we knew, we wouldn’t be snogging in the dining hall. But it would be nice to run my hand across his back or be able to lean over and whisper a joke in his ear. We aren’t pretending to be enemies, we’re clearly friends, but I do wish I could hold his hand or give him a hug after his football match.

Three weeks after we come back, it gets to me. 

“I don’t want to out you, but would you be comfortable if I told Agatha and Penny we’re dating?” I ask. We’re sitting in our room. I’m at my desk, struggling with work, and he’s sitting cross legged on his bed reading. His head snaps up.

“Are we dating?” he drawls. Crowley, I want to kill him.

“Yeah, we fucking are, don’t try to pull that shit,” I huff. I kick back from my desk and stomp across the room to him and sit on the bed across from him. His eyes barely flick up from his book.

“Frankly, I’ve been unsure of whether you’ve officially broken up with Wellbelove,” he says coldly. I sputter.

“What? Yes? I did before you came back, I did it like the first day of school?”

That gets his attention.

“Why?” he asks softly, tilting his head to the side. His mouth fills, and I can tell he’s nervous because he’s sucking on his fangs. It’s the nastiest thing to watch, and he only does it when he’s thinking or anxious. I don’t know how he doesn’t regularly cut his tongue.

“For all the reasons I told you this summer? And, you know, for you.”

“Did you tell her it was for me? Did you tell her you’re gay?”

I flush. Crowley, we’re headed into a fight. That’s the only thing I miss from before this. When I got pissed at him I could just hit him. Now I actually care if he gets hurt.

“I… no, I didn’t. I don’t know if I’m gay.”

He sighs heavily and closes his eyes. I can see the gears working, and he’s deciding whether he’s going to turn this into an argument. Instead, he just sighs.

“I’m glad you broke up with Wellbelove,” he says finally. “I like having this just…be us, but I don’t care if people know. Do you want people to know?”

He looks tired. I think this might have been weighing on him for a bit. I should have told him about breaking up with Agatha way earlier. I just kind of forget, sometimes, that Baz doesn’t already know everything I know. I just shrug.

“I mean, I don’t care,” I say. He sighs loudly. “I guess I’d like people to know. They’ll find out eventually,” I hurry to add. 

“And why is that?” he drawls. He moves a bit closer to me and I shrug again.

“You know. Because I guess I’m pretty invested in this. And I kind of plan to stay invested.”

Baz grins and hums softly. His fingers reach out and tap my knee.

“That’s good to know,” he says. “My plan was just to kill anyone else you ever date.”

“See? You’re invested too,” I say. I lie back down on his bed and put my head in his lap. He gets the hint and runs his fingers through my hair. I want to be close, but honestly, today was exhausting and I don’t always have the energy for one of our intense snogging sessions. 

“So I suppose we can tell people,” he says quietly. I nod. “Just, do it naturally, alright? I don’t want to throw a fucking party,” he hurries to add. I grin and turn my face into his leg so his fingers can reach the back of my head. I already told Penny. (I won’t tell him that.) But it will be nice to not have to keep up that act.

I’m shit at lying.

**BAZ**

The term drags on and the Visitings keep happening. Niall meets the ghost of his grandfather, who tells him of the location of buried gilt bonds that have apparently been missing for years.

He chooses to celebrate his new wealth by smuggling in three bottles of vodka and a bottle of Buchanan’s that I’m fairly sure had been stolen from my father’s bar. Snow and I’s room is chosen for the scene of the debauchery, and Bunce manages to sneak Wellbelove up with some kind of of dark magic (I have to assume).

I lean against the door and watch as Dev and Niall shove the beds together against the far wall and I catch Snow’s eye. Why didn’t we think of that sooner?

We sleep in our own beds most nights because, although I love waking up to his warmth and revolting morning breath, I’m too tall and he’s too wide for us to sleep comfortably in a single bed. I see him grin widely. We’ll definitely be keeping the beds like this tonight. 

Dev tries to get a poker game going that barely takes off (Bunce is far, far too skilled for everyone else), and Wellbelove suggests a game of Never Have I Ever that involves shots. 

I lie every chance I get. Simon is awful at it, and he gets extremely drunk. At least he’s a happy drunk, thank Merlin. He gasps in genuine surprise when Agatha says “never have I ever had sex” and Bunce takes a drink. (Snow didn’t drink. I was pathetically relieved.) 

“Penny, really?” He exclaims. “This summer?” Bunce gives him a look that could kill, but he doesn’t even notice, just pulls her into a bone crushing hug.

“Never have I ever found a magickal creature attractive,” Bunce says when her turn comes up. She looks straight at Simon and I can’t help the bubbling giggle that comes out of me. He, Agatha, and Dev all drink. 

“I can admit it, I kind of fancy that sprite in the Wavering Wood,” Dev shouts, even though no one asked. Snow snorts vodka out of his nose. 

“Alright, alright, come on, admit it, Snow. What creature would you try to pull?” 

Snow looks straight at me and smiles. Oh, fuck. 

“Goblins are quite fit, aren’t they?” he slurs. A shout goes up around the room and I fall back onto my elbows.

“Goblins? Really?” I ask. He just shrugs. 

Fuck, he’s adorable. 

Until he starts calling me out for lying. 

“Never have I ever flown,” Wellbelove says. She’s been throwing out stupid things all night, like “never have I ever been to America” and “Never have I ever had a taco.” Despite suggesting it, I don’t think she particularly wants to be in this game. 

Everyone else in the circle grumbles and takes a shot, except for me. I’ve never been on a plane.

“No!” Snow shouts. “No! Baz! Drink!”

I raise an eyebrow. 

“I’ve never flown, Snow,” I respond. He shakes his head and hits me. 

“Yes, yes you have!” He waves his hand at the room, apparently believing people aren’t paying enough attention to him. “He’s lying guys, he can fly. Fucking drink. Drink!” he shouts. Dev and Niall take up the chant and Snow smiles widely. I narrow my eyes at him and take a shot and he cheers and falls back on his elbows.

“Shut the fuck up,” I hiss, turning to him. But I’m laughing. He does his drunk donkey bray again and buries his head into my neck, silent laughter wracking his body. I shove him forcefully and he topples over and lays on his back on the ground. 

“Baz can fly?” Dev asks. Snow giggles.

“It’s so fucking beautiful, you have no fucking idea,” he says, picking up his foot to prod me lightly in the stomach. I grin widely. 

“Snow you’re a ridiculous drunk,” I snarl, but I think the effect is ruined somewhat by my smile. 

“Oi, never have I ever been kidnapped by numpties,” he shoots back. A shout of approval and surprise goes up around the room. I lean back on my elbows and glare at him. 

“Never have I ever set the Wavering Woods on fire,” I snap. That earns a snort of amusement from Wellbelove. Snow narrows his eyes — impressive, considering he’s so drunk they’ve nearly disappeared — and growls.

“Never have I ever pissed blood!”

The room goes silent. 

He didn’t. He fucking didn’t.

“I told you that in private, you fucking nightmare!” I shout, pulling myself to my feet. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip his body into pieces. 

Snow’s eyes go wide and he skuttles backward until he runs into Bunce, and throws his hands up just as I descend on him. 

“Anathema!” he shouts, his voice cracking. I freeze, and then sit down heavily not he ground next to him. Dev and Niall are sobbing with laughter, Bunce has frozen in the middle of a shot, and Wellbelove looks thoroughly spooked. 

“Why are you such a persistent asshole?” I ask him. I can tell that my ears are flushed. Snow seems to have realised I’m not going to kill him, because he comes back over to me unsteadily. 

“Can’t help it,” he says, settling next to me and rolling onto his back. “I hate you.” His hand snakes out to pat my knee as he says it.

I snort. 

“There’s a numpty-sized crater in the middle of London that indicates quite differently,” I respond. I lay down as well, so that my head is near his feet. I feel Bunce come and lie on my other side. 

“Hey Basil?” she asks. I hum. “How are you able to fly?” 

I open my mouth to lie, but Snow beats me to it. 

“True love!” he shouts, then wheezes. “How fucking dramatic is that? Only Baz, I swear to Chompsky.”

“Oh, this makes so much more sense now,” Wellbelove gasps from the corner. All eyes go to her. “You two are  _gay_.”

“I’m not gay!’ Snow shouts from the floor. “I just like Baz!”

I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip him into a thousand pieces and weep over his body. I’m going to regret it. But he deserves it. 

**SIMON**

I think I might still be drunk. There’s a chance this is a vivid hallucination, but I’m pretty sure there’s someone standing in front of my bed, and it’s not Baz, because he’s literally snoring next to me, his mouth slightly open and one fang glinting in the moonlight.

There’s a cold wind, and I almost don’t notice because Baz’s skin is so blissfully cool against me. But then I look up and see the woman. I know her immediately. 

“Fuck, fuck,” I mutter, sitting up. I poke Baz, and he shoves me back and turns his face back into the pillow. I push him again. “Baz, seriously, wake up.”

He sits up groggily and stares at me, his eyes barely open, and I gesture to the end of the bed. I watch his eyes follow mine, and when he sees her he tenses, then sits up immediately. 

Dark grey eyes meet dark grey eyes. 

“ _My son_ ,” the Visitor says. Baz’s mum. “ _You’re here now. You weren’t here_.”

“I was taken,” he croaks. His voice is small and he looks terrified. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be witnessing this. I go to move, to get out of the bed and leave them alone, but Baz grabs my thigh with an iron grip and I stay.

Natasha Pitch’s eyes flick to me, then off. She doesn’t have much time; I guess she’s not going to waste it giving me shit. She moves closer to the bed and even my natural warmth isn’t enough to fight back the intense cold that radiates off of her. Baz doesn’t seem to notice though; he just leans in. 

“ _Basilton_ ,” she says and takes him by the shoulders. A sob escapes him. 

“Mum,” he whispers. Natasha Pitch leans in and presses translucent lips to his forehead, and I watch as his eyes flutter closed. This is heartbreaking. This feels invasive. I shouldn’t be here.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry for who I am. For what I am.” I put my hand on his back. I hate this. I hate that the first thing he does is apologise for existing.

“ _Basilton_ ,” she says again. “ _You must do your duty_.”

I tamp down a growl, and Baz looks like he’s just been punched. Did she fucking come back from the dead to chew him out for being gay? My skin tingles. I hate her. I hate her.

“ _My killer walks,_ ” she says, taking him by the shoulders. “ _Nicodemus knows. Find Nico and bring me peace. Do you understand?_ ”

“Your killer?” he echoes. “You were killed by vampires. Sent by the Humdrum.”

“ _There’s always more beneath the surface, Basilton,_ ” she says. “ _Find Nico. Fiona will know._ ”

“Fiona?” he croaks. He looks completely overwhelmed. His mother is thinning now. I’ve seen it before; the Visitings only last a minute or so before they fade out, and Baz’s mother is going. 

“ _I love you,_ ” she says, and another small sob escapes him. “ _Never apologise. You’re a Pitch. We never say sorry._ ”

She presses her lips to his forehead again, and then fades completely.

“I love you,” he whispers into the dark of the room. But she’s not there to hear it. 

I press myself closer to him and wrap an arm around his waist. I expect him to shy away, to push me back, but he doesn’t, and instead folds himself into me and cries. I’m stone cold sober.

“Hey, we’re going to find him,” I whisper. “Tomorrow we’re going to go home and hold Fiona over a flame until she tells us about Nicodemus, and we’re going to find her killer.”

He nods against me, then pushes back, his hands clenched. He looks angry, so angry, and now I know where he gets it from. His mother looked like a terrifying avenging angel. 

“She came back,” he says. I nod. I have no fucking idea what to say. “Do you think she knows? About me?”

I shrug and move to wrap my arms around him again. He lets me, and I pull myself behind his back and rest my forehead on his shoulder blade. Even through his pyjamas he’s freezing. 

“I think so,” I say. “She told you not to apologise. And she told you that she loved you.”

“I should call Fiona now,” he says, moving to get out of bed. I tighten my grip around his middle. 

“Do it in person. She’s slippery,” I whisper. “And beside, she won’t wake up. Please, Baz. We’ll leave in the morning.”

The tension leaves him, slowly, and he sinks back into my arms. 

“The killer did this. Whoever killed her, whoever this Nico is, they know something. They took me so I couldn’t be here for her,” he says through clenched teeth. I nod. 

“I think you’re right.”

I kiss his shoulder carefully, then the side of his neck, then run my fingers up the base of his scalp and through his hair.

“I’m so tired,” he whispers. “I almost slept through it.”

“But you didn’t,” I say. I try to pull him back onto our joined beds, and he lets me. I don’t want to sleep; I want to get up, this moment, and drive to London and hold a sword to Fiona until she tells us what she knows. But he needs sleep. He needs a chance to work through this. 

I listen as his breathing slows and he eventually drifts off, but I stay up, half conscious. I must have fallen asleep at some point though, because I awake to the feeling of cold again, washing over me like a cloud, descending down to wrap me in it. 

“ _My son_ ,” I hear, but I don’t see anything. I shove Baz roughly. 

“Baz, Baz, she’s back,” I whisper. The cold is still wrapped around me like a hug. Baz sits up and looks around, but he can’t see anything. 

“ _My son, my son. My rosebud boy,_ ” Baz’s mum says again. I’m happy she came back for him, but I wish she wasn’t fucking freezing. Her voice is higher this time and it sounds so, so much sadder. This feels awful.

“Simon,” Baz whispers, but the voice is still wailing. 

“ _I never would have left you. He told me we were stars_.” 

I wrap my arms around me and squint through the darkness to Baz. He’s still blinking around, clearly confused. 

“What does your mum mean?” I whisper. He turns to face me, his eyes wide. 

“I don’t think that’s my mum,” he says. 

The cold washes through me again, around my back, down my arms, and then through my hair. It feels like when Baz plays with it, but a thousand times colder. 

“ _Simon_ ,” the voice wails. “ _Simon, my rosebud boy_.”

I feel Baz’s sturdy arm around my waist long before I process what I’m hearing. The cold is retreating, already slipping away. 

“Wait,” I call. “Who are you?”

“ _My son,_ ” comes the keening. Then silence.

“Was that….” Baz starts, but I shake my head. 

“I have no idea. That’s not possible. I don’t….” I’m sputtering. There’s no possible way. “That had to have been your mum.”

“I was never my mother’s rosebud boy,” Baz whispers back. Now he’s the one holding me, pulling me into his embrace while I sit there stiffly. I feel like I should cry. Baz cried. But the tears won’t come. 

“What…why would she…” I say. Baz kisses my forehead. 

“Because she loves you. She came through the Veil because she had a message. She had to tell you she loves you.”

“I don’t even know who she is,” I say. My voice is almost impossible to hear. If he weren’t a vampire, I don’t know if he would.

“We’ll find her,” he says. His voice is strong, ferocious. You would never know he had been sobbing an hour ago. “We’ll find her name, and we’ll avenge my mother, and we’ll destroy the fucking Humdrum, and then we’ll live happily ever after, I swear to fucking Chompsky.” 

I shake my head. I can’t possibly believe it will work like that. 

“I don’t…no,” I say. “No. We’ll focus on your mum and then the Humdrum. Your family needs this. Your family needs peace.”

Baz places his hands on my cheeks and forcibly turns my head to look at him. 

“Simon, you absolute moron. You are my family. Your mother matters to me, alright?” He’s practically vibrating with righteous indignation. “We can do this. We can do both. You’re the Greatest Mage, and I’m the most gorgeous vampire to ever live. I’m a Pitch, and you’re the Chosen One, and no one, not numpties, or ghosts, or the Humdrum himself are going to stop us. You hear me?”

I laugh weakly. 

“Simon, I can fucking fly, and you cast a poem to find me. Do you truly think we can’t find your mother’s name and my mother’s murderer?”

I shake my head. He’s right. He’s always right. 

“Okay,” I say. I nod. “Yeah, okay. We’ll do this.”

“First thing in the morning, we’ll start working,” he says. “We’ll go home, and we’ll make a plan.”

I let him pull me back into the pillows and he wraps his arms around my waist and cradles me into his chest. I’m exhausted. I can’t think. I can’t feel. But Baz is here. Baz is holding me, and keeping me sane, and talking sense. 

“Yeah,” I say, just before I drift off. “We’ll figure it out at home.”


End file.
